Kallis and Ponting: The enduring comparison

Ricky Ponting made his Test match debut on December 8, 1995, against Sri Lanka at the Waca, just six days before Jacques Kallis made his debut for South Africa against England at Kingsmead.

In the intervening 12 years they have spent much of that time matching each other almost stroke for stroke and statistic for statistic with the slight edge that the Australian has in the batting department being more than matched by the South African’s all-round achievements in the bowling department.

The duo have had to sit in the shadow of both Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar as far as Test runs aggregates and Test centuries are concerned but they are the best positioned cricketers to overhaul the stars of the West Indies and India if that is to become possible.

Tendulkar, after all, is little more than a year older than Ponting and two years older than Kallis and can thus expect to go on playing for much the same length of time as his two challengers.

What does count in their favour is that Ponting (59.27) and Kallis (57.71) have better career averages at this stage than Tendulkar (54.92).

A second Indian, Rahul Dravid, can not be left out of the equation either as he is currently just ahead of Ponting and Kallis in the runs stakes and is only three months older than Tendulkar. The only area where he trails significantly is in centuries scored.

Tendulkar has 37 three-figures scores compared with the 33 of Ponting, the 28 of Kallis and the 24 of Dravid.

A comparison of Ponting and Kallis makes fascinating and significant reading (tabulated under: Test matches, innings, runs, average, 100s, 50s, fours, catches):

Kallis obviously can throw his 219 wickets (four ‘fifers’) into the ring as well although Ponting supporters can point out that he has the better innings return (1/0), even if he only has 5 Test wickets!

Leading century scorers in Test cricket:
37 Sachin Tendulkar
34 Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara
33 Ricky Ponting
32 Steve Waugh
29 Don Bradman
28 Jacques Kallis

Michael Owen-Smith
Media officer, Cricket South Africa
Mobile: 0834124514
E-mail: michaelo@cricket.co.za