Cardiff Local Guide A guide to all Things Cardiff
He was, as you would expect, quiet, focused and unfathomably talented. He did
not really like bowling, but once he had a ball in his hand he was
wonderfully aggressive and difficult to withdraw from the attack. And boy,
was he quick.
When Alistair Brown retired in 2011, he talked fondly of a century he made at
the Oval for Surrey against Glamorgan in 1999. He was right, too. Kallis and
Simon Jones (who broke Jonathan Batty’s cheekbone) both bowled like the
wind. I was shaking at gully.
Kallis was also good fun. His Glamorgan debut was delayed even after the World
Cup by injury, but he still travelled to Blackpool for a match against
Lancashire. One evening we headed to the Pleasure Beach, and it was decided
that we should all experience the famous Pepsi Max Big One rollercoaster
ride.
Kallis and I were at the back of the queue, both as petrified as each other.
If he had said we should leave, I would have done so like a shot. But
eventually he just said: “Let’s do it.”
So we did, and it was horrendous. Some calming of the nerves was required, and
at a nearby pizza restaurant Kallis decided that a couple of glasses of
cider would do the trick. A nickname was instantly born. ‘Scrumpy Jacques’
he became. “Scrumpy is a Welshman,” they were singing in 2002.
Kallis was lucky, though. Lucky that a schoolmate at Wynberg Boys’ High School
in Cape Town was called Michael Fletcher. His father is Duncan. And Kallis
spent most of his spare hours as a youngster at the cricket nets with
Michael and his father.
Nobody knew at the time that Fletcher would one day be revealed as one of the
world’s great batting coaches, but it is little surprise that Kallis became
of one of the game’s finest technicians, with his ‘back-and-across’ method
to the quicker bowlers and Fletcher’s famous ‘forward press’ against the
spinners. There is no better example for youngsters to copy.
Talking of Fletcher, you wonder what he is thinking right now as he rests at
home near Cape Town before taking his India side to New Zealand. If he were
urging another Schofield Report of English cricket, you would hardly blame
him.
That was what he had to endure in 2007 after England’s last whitewash in
Australia, and at least that was against one of the greatest teams ever to
grace a cricket field.
England were still ranked second in the world after that series. They are now
fourth.
That is not, of course, to say that there should be such an investigation now.
Andy Flower must continue, as, thankfully, it looks as if he will. But what
it does demonstrate is that knee-jerks are rarely the best reaction.
Australia had their own version, the Argus Report, after defeat by England
in 2010-11. That had been mostly ripped up by this series.
Good men in the important positions are mostly the key, as Australia have
shown with Darren Lehmann. Flower, like Fletcher, is a good man.
