While Indian great Sachin Tendulkar remains one of the few cricketers in the world to have score more than 10,000 runs each in Tests as well ODIs, South African great Jacques Kallis remains the only cricketers in the world to have scored more than 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs each apart from taking more than 250 wickets in each format.
While Tendulkar remains the highest run-scorer in terms of aggregate with his tally of 15,921 runs and 18,426 runs in Tests and ODIs respectively, Kallis has been regarded as one of the world’s best all-rounders. Former Australian pacer Brett Lee has shared how he sees Tendulkar as the best batsman ever to play the game and how he sees Kallis as the best cricketer ever to play cricket.
“I’ve always said that I think that the best batsman to ever play the game is Sachin Tendulkar but the best cricketer, in my opinion, is Jacques Kallis. The best numbers in the world. If you look at his stats, the statistics don’t lie. He’s incredible,” Lee said while speaking on the podcast The Ranveer Show on YouTube.
Lee, who played in 38 matches in his IPL career apart from his international career, also played along with Kallis for the IPL side Kolkata Knight Riders and the duo also won the IPL side with the team in 2012. Kallis played in 98 matches scoring 2,427 runs and claiming 65 wickets.
In his T20 international career, the Protea played in 25 T20I matches scoring 666 runs and taking 12 wickets for South Africa. Lee also spoke about his time with Kallis in IPL and shared how Kallis’s heart-rate would be about thirty beats per minute before going to bat. “But to be alongside him as a teammate and to watch him prepare for a game. His heart rate was about thirty beats a minute before going out to bat. So relaxed. Now it might have been organised chaos in the head, but externally it looked as though he was just so chilled,” Lee shared on the podcast.
Lee also shared how the South African all-rounder would be meticulous in his preparation ahead of a match and how it was different from other players like Mike Hussey.
“The way would watch him get changed, for he put his gear on like his batting gear and he’d put his left sock on first. His other sock would go in his mouth. Same thing every single day. Gets his socks, one in the mouth, puts the left sock on, puts his right sock on, puts his left pad on, right pad, whichever way it was. It was the same every single time and just got up and just out of his chair, wiggle, go out and just dominate. Then you look at other players like Mike Husseys of the world, they’d be jumping up and down, running up and down, making sure he wouldn’t hurt himself. Just different ways to get ready and prepare. And I love that I was taken into that environment thanks to the IPL,” shared Lee.