The former cricket player, who played in 519 international matches, was appointed in preparation for the upcoming Test series against England.
After going through one of the worst phases a cricket team can go through, both on and off the pitch, South African cricket has started its rebuilding phase. So far, the process has shown some positive results. After former captain Graeme Smith was appointed as Cricket South Africa’s director, more former players were announced to take coaching positions on the team. Mark Boucher was named as the head coach of the national team until 2023 while former batsman Ashwell Prince was put in charge of the South African A team in preparation for their four-match Test tour against England.
After being appointed as cricket director, Graeme Smith asserted that he will bring in more former cricketers like Jacques Kallis into the set-up. As it so happens, it was confirmed that the former all-rounder has been named as South Africa’s batting consultant for the upcoming summer.
Over the course his career, Kallis played 519 international matches during which he racked 25,534 runs and 577 wickets before retiring from all forms of international cricket in 2014. He racked up 62 international centuries – 45 Test and 17 ODI – at an average of 55.37 and 44.36 respectively.
Cricket South Africa announced the news on their Twitter, saying:
‘#BreakingNews Former Standard Bank Proteas all-rounder, @jacqueskallis75 has been named as the team’s batting consultant for the duration of the summer. He will join the squad for their camp starting in Pretoria today (Wednesday). #Thread#ProteaFire’.
Ever since his appointment as CSA director, Graeme has been vocal about the necessary steps in order to revive cricket in South Africa. ‘As far as my vision for the future is concerned, we need to rewind to performance excellence and that will be the focus going forward. Our public want and demand a world-class Proteas side and we must deliver on that. As far as my own future is concerned, I face a very busy and at times hectic three months and I am not going to look further ahead than that. I am sure everybody will understand that…’.
South Africa will face England in four Test matches from December 26 through January 28, 2020. South Africa has odds of +114 while England has odds of -133.33. To find out more about South Africa’s upcoming matches, visit Betwala’s page.
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