“These days it’s all about entertainment, being easy on the eye. It’s not about effectiveness, the role that you play or how much you’re worth to a team.” 

Jonathan Trott can’t understand why Jacques Kallis isn’t regarded by more people as the greatest cricketer of the modern era, if not the greatest of all time. “It’s ridiculous,” he continues. “People go with Tendulkar and Lara because of the way that they watch cricket, but if you stack him up against anybody, he’s the best.”

Trott has a point. Kallis’ Test record compares favourably with almost any other batsman of modern times, with a higher average than Lara, Tendulkar, Dravid and Ponting. Among batsmen who have debuted in the past 30 years, only Kumar Sangakkara, Steve Smith and Adam Voges (who only played 20 Tests, and a high percentage of those against weaker nations) can top Kallis’ career average of 55.37.

Does he have less love for the game than when he started out? “Probably, yeah. Look, I’ve never been one, even through my career, to watch much cricket. I loved playing it but I’ve never been a great watcher of the game. From that point of view, nothing really has changed. If I said to you I’d watched 10 balls of the England-South Africa series, that’s probably a lie. I saw the results but that’s probably about as much as I know. But the game of cricket has given a lot in my life and I try and give back, certainly from a coaching point of view.”

***

In February 2016, as part of a feature on the world’s most underrated cricketers, we picked out Kallis, writing: “There is an almost grudging acceptance of his excellence that’s rarely accompanied by a true appreciation of his standing within the game”. It caused a minor stink on Twitter, with Darren Gough tweeting us to say we were talking nonsense: ‘Just played masters cricket [the Masters Champions League in UAE] and everyone says he’s the best ever’. 

Gough’s reply appears to be indicative of a distinction in the way that Kallis is viewed between those who play the game at the highest level, and those who watch it. While fans, and often the media, might not speak of Kallis in the same breath as Sachin, Sobers or Lara, many of those who have played with or against him regard him as their equal or better. 

“I truly believe Kallis is the greatest cricketer ever,” said Kevin Pietersen in 2010. Michael Vaughan judged Kallis to be a “close second” to Shane Warne when asked the best player he had ever seen and described him as “the game’s greatest ever all-rounder”. Rahul Dravid called him “The Garry Sobers of our generation”. Brett Lee ranked him the “best ever”. 

Hashim Amla put it most succinctly upon Kallis’ retirement from international cricket. “You appreciate the magnitude of the cricketer not only when you look at his record but also when you play alongside him.” 

Kallis would probably be quietly satisfied with that. Not that he’s in the business of letting on.