King Kallis: the last superstar standing

Once, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting and Jacques Kallis glittered together in the firmament of laying bat on ball better than anyone else.

Soon, what with Lara long gone, Ponting having bid a choked farewell during SA's tour to Australia last summer, and Tendulkar planning to send a billion and more Indians into dark depression when he retires in two tests' time, only Kallis will remain to shine his light out of the murk of cricket's comparative mediocrity.

But for how long? He is, after all, 38 - a 38 special, but no longer young by sport's standards - and creaking with the wear, tear and accumulated mishaps of 18 years spent defying the best bowlers in cricket as well as being one.

"It's never been something to concern me, age," Kallis said yesterday. "Sometimes I still feel like a teenager. To be one of the older players around is not too nice, but at least I've lasted this long."

And, clearly, the spark is still there. Minutes earlier, Kallis was bowling to AB de Villiers in a net set up on the pitch table at Sheikh Zayed stadium. De Villiers stretched forward to parry a delivery. Kallis pounced on the ball dribbling to his right, snapped it up and threw down De Villiers' stumps in what amounted to the mock charge of a grizzled bull elephant: watch yourself, youngster.

Five months ago, after Kallis had soldiered through another lucrative but arduous edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), that kind of enthusiasm for the simple pleasures his talent afforded him had dried up. So much so that he took himself out of contention for a place in SA's squad to play in the Champions Trophy in England in June.

"The break has been what I needed," Kallis said. "After the IPL I wanted to get away from the game - I didn't watch a ball of cricket. I needed to refresh my mind. I got to do what most people do on weekends. People ask what's my favourite holiday destination. I say, 'home' because I'm not there very often."

In the desired absence of anything to do with cricket, Kallis braaied. He watched schools rugby. He played in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship with Ian Botham, Bobby Charlton, Ruud Gullit, Steve Redgrave, Rob Louw and, not least, Mark Boucher. Most memorably, judging from the glint in his eye as he said it, he "finished third in the gross and first in the nett" at the Leopard Creek club championships.

"It's about the mental break; wanting to play again is key for me," he said.

For 18 years South Africans have believed that there was no way in or out of Kallis's steel trap of a mind. This was what made him bulletproof: he could not be bothered unless he decided to be bothered.

Now we know different, and while the irritation of the nation rose to surprising levels when he opted out of the cause to try and win an International Cricket Council trophy in June, there must be relief that he is, after everything, human.

Hold that thought. "Watching 'Jakes' in the nets, it looks like he's had a whole season already," Graeme Smith said on Thursday of the seamless 70 Kallis scored in a tour match in Sharjah. The day before, Claude Henderson, SA's spin consultant, had also been gobsmacked: "Jacques Kallis had two net sessions and said, 'I'm ready for the test'."

What kind of human can come in from the cold of five months of not thinking about cricket and its myriad technical twists and fool seasoned observers that he has never been away?

"My game is pretty simple anyway, so I don't need to hit many balls to get back in," Kallis said.

Simple enough, in fact, to start his net sessions by batting with a stump, a habit Smith has also taken up.

"Watching Jacques do that is amazing," SA's physiotherapist, Brandon Jackson, said. "He middles it with a stump! He actually places the ball."

To see all of India mourn the imminent end of Tendulkar's career as if he was on his deathbed is disturbing. He's just a cricketer. Get over it. There will be others.

Another Kallis? Not for a long time.

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