Consistent Man - Jacques Kallis

Veteran South African all rounder Jacques Kallis requires just 184 runs over the course of the next two Test matches against Pakistan to move above retired Indian batsman Rahul Dravid into the third place for most runs in a Test career.  Kallis not only bowl , but also bat  that make him best in world

It is an even taller order, but should Kallis amass 274 runs at Newlands when the second Test starts on Thursday, he can also leapfrog Australia’s Ricky Ponting.

He would then be placed at the second position, Sports24 reported.

That would leave only the still-active, Sachin Tendulkar still to haul in, and that seems like a tough task as the Indian maestro remains well over 2 000 runs clear of anybody at the top of the list (15 645 runs in 194 Tests at an average of 54.32), the paper added.

Tendulkar, who turns 40 in April, leaves the 37-year-old Kallis some breathing space if he manages to prolong his own career to a significant extent, the paper said.

Hauling in Dravid and Ponting, however, seems just around the proverbial corner for Kallis, even if it doesn’t occur before the Proteas’ 2012/13 Test season comes to a close against the Pakistanis.

Currently standing on 13 105 runs (average 56.48, 161 Tests), Kallis is breathing right down the neck of Dravid (13 288 runs, average 52.31, 164 Tests), whilst Ponting (13 378, average 51.85, 168 Tests) is also under real threat from him.

Kallis also goes into the remaining two Tests against Pakistan just 12 wickets short of the personal landmark of 300 wickets.

Jack kallis is best allrounder world ever seen, what wonder me is he still bowl at a speed around 140 at the age of 37 also consistant with bat.  4-5 years ago , he was strugling with bowling , his speed went down to 125-130 mark.  That time i thought his bowling days over.

but from there he surprised everyone with sharp quick bouncers @ 140 speed.

he is very economical too, in he bowl in powerplays , in depth.  no words ...

such a legend player.  how many fast bowlers in history of cricket bowl 140 speed after 36 age.All his centuries comes to save south Africa at crucial level

Considering his immense all-rounder abilities, Kallis deserves to be No.1 in the run aggregate as well, and I truly hope he overtakes Tendulkar, but its slightly unlikely because he then needs to have 2 1000-plus run years - assuming he plays for another 2 - but really great people retire while remaining great(I'm looking at you, Tendulkar), so he might retire earlier than that.

Don't want to watch too much TV? Get yourself a good book to read

Procrastination and diversions are part of our existence. Given a chance we will play rather than work. The author tells us how to fight the habit. Have you heard the story of the mahout and the temple elephant?
In a little town in Kerala, there was a temple elephant. Everyday, the elephant would be taken out for a stroll through the busy bazaar streets.
As it walked along, the elephant would do as it pleased. It would reach out with its trunk for a bunch of bananas hanging in front of a store, and before the hapless shopkeeper could react, the bananas would be inside the elephant's mouth.
Or it would grab a coconut from the woman selling coconuts on the road, and crunch it in its mouth like a walnut. The mahout would try and stop the elephant from doing all of this, but to no avail. The elephant would just do as it pleased. The mahout even tried beating the elephant with his stick, but the elephant wouldn't listen. The bananas and the coconuts were just too tempting to resist.

And then one day, the clever mahout had an idea. As the elephant was leaving the temple gates for his evening walk, the mahout held his stick out for the elephant to hold with his trunk. The elephant obediently took the mahout's stick and curled his trunk around it.

Now as it walked through the busy bazaar street, the elephant longingly eyed the bananas but since it had the stick in the trunk, it left the bananas alone.
To grab the bananas, it would have to drop the stick -- and that would mean offending the mahout. So the elephant held on to the stick that the mahout had given it -- and walked through the street, without disturbing the merchandise in the shops. And the shopkeepers were delighted and they often handed over gifts to the mahout -- for the elephant.


If you think about it, we are all a bit like the elephant.
As we go through our lives, we get distracted by the temptations around us. And even though our mahouts -- our parents and our teachers -- tell us not to get distracted, we continue doing it all. We spend time watching television shows, sleeping the extra hour and chatting non-stop.
What we really need is that stick to hold. And that stick is usually a goal -- a purpose -- that excites us and keeps us on track. Once you have a goal, you suddenly find yourself focused.
Like an elephant's trunk, our minds wander too. We need something to keep it focused. We need that stick!
Have you ever been told "Don't do that" when you were doing something you shouldn't be doing? And remember how you still went ahead and did it?
Problem is we need something to do. So the best way to stop a person from doing something he shouldn't be doing is to give him something good to do. Don't want to watch too much TV? Get yourself a good book to read. Don't want to eat another pack of those chips? Eat a fruit. Don't want to become a couch potato? Start running.
Most of our problems in life start when we don't have anything meaningful to do. Having no goals means not having to work towards achieving them.
Not having a hobby or a passion means spending long hours idling away. And that old saying is still true. An idle mind is indeed a devil's workshop.
So starting today, get yourself a goal, a purpose that drives you to action. That's not all. Play a sport, indulge a passion, spend time on a hobby -- but don't just sit there doing nothing. Unlike the temple elephant, not all of us are lucky enough to find a mahout who gives us that stick to hold. But we all need that stick. That goal!
You'll find a stick for yourself today, won't you?

How People Understand Technology

There is an old story of how several blind men set out to understand what an elephant was by examining a live specimen. Each of them explored a different part of the elephant's body. One blind man, falling against the elephant's side, proclaimed that an elephant must be very much like a wall. Another, grasping the elephant's ear, decided that an elephant must closely resemble a leaf. One grabbed the elephant's tail and determined that elephants must resemble ropes. Yet another felt the elephant's leg and came away convinced that elephants are very much like trees. Still another held the elephant's trunk and exclaimed that elephants had much in common with snakes.

An Elephant

While there was at least a grain of truth in each blind man's observation, none of them had a complete and accurate understanding of just what an elephant is. We can imagine the many animated debates that these blind men had when they compared notes -- each sure that the others must be wrong. Often, people studying technology are like the blind men in our story. It is very common to focus intently on one facet of one aspect of a technology while ignoring the vast breadth of the same technology. There is nothing wrong with this -- unless a person studying the facet begins to think that he or she has somehow acquired a good grasp of the entire technology.
To acquire an in-depth understanding of a technology requires a great deal of research. The sheer bulk of material that must be examined is daunting. The task is further complicated by the unfortunate errors contained in many discussions. Even if an individual can assimilate a large quantity of material and easily identify any errors, there is still the process of analyzing what has been assimilated. To truly understand a technology, an individual must be able to recognize valid patterns, and to easily spot invalid patterns.

All about 100th 100

Every one wants to play for long and even if I get a chance, I'll try to give a statement like wants to play till I die. There are number of young players who are just waiting for one chance to prove, you have seen the performance of Kohli. Like you if Dravid, Gavaskar, Ravi Shastry thought to continue, then from where would we have got gems like Yuvraj, Ganguly, Gambhir and kohli. It is just because of you, the rotation policy was introduced and the poor young blood is tested off and on. Imagine, during your initial days, if management has taken you on and off for every match, where would you be now?, also please recollect what was your performance for the first four years. It is just because of the sponsorers, the management is continuing you to be in the team and before they kick you out like they did for Kapil, Azhar, Srikkanth, please retire your self with dignity.


The 100th century against bangladesh costs us the match . He played so slow for his century. Always he has played for records.

Statement of Selector:
Of course , Sachin will himself decide when
he has to call a day . No one else has a right to ask that genious to retire . He's the only cricketer in the world who has choice
to decide the tours ie when to play & when to take rest . Selecters cannot drop fit Sachin OR ask to take rest if he desires to play .

GREAT PLAYER . NATION SALUTES BHARAT RATNA SACHIN .

Last 5 100s
96Score: 111Bilateral Test series, 2010, 1st Test
India vs South Africa
SuperSport Park Centurion, Cricket Stadium, Centurion
South Africa won by an innings and 25 runs
97Score: 146Bilateral Test series, 2011, 1st Test
India vs South Africa
Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town
Match drawn
98Score: 120World Cup 2011, Group B
India vs England
Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore
Match tied
99Score: 111World Cup 2011, Group B
India vs South Africa
VidarbhaCricket Association Stadium, Nagpur
South Africa won by 3 wickets
100Score:114Asia Cup, 2012, 4th ODI
India vs Bangladesh
MirpurBangladesh won by 5 wickets

He's a gentleman, he's a wall, he's a quintessential team man, India's greatest No. 3

Enough with the cheeky question marks. Enough with the half-baked compliments and the cryptic monikers! Be true and call the man what he is - the greatest Indian batsman of all-time.
True, he's a gentleman, he's a wall, he's a quintessential team man, India's greatest No. 3 ... all that. But all that's still a blatant understatement of his true standing -- as India's greatest batsman.



For too long now, Rahul Dravid's telling contributions to India's cricketing story book have been heedlessly censored, and he has been unofficially, and rather unfairly, labelled as second best. In all the apathy surrounding this plot, the prejudice of the masses may be excused, but the betrayal of the pundits -- the correspondents and the former cricketers -- cannot.
Dravid's case is compelling; give the man his due.
Like it or hate it, there is simply nothing like Test cricket; even within the radius of cricket. There's a profound difference between competing over three hours and competing over five days. No matter how good a player is, he cannot legitimately earn the right of passage to greatness without being able to scratch it in Tests; and anybody with even a fleeting interest in the game will tell you that.


Dravid not only just had the skill and temperament but also had the mental fortitude to build his great wall, brick by brick.
India, the cricketing nation, had reached the summit of One-Day cricket and was a decent outfit in that format, long before the arrival of Sachin Tendulkar in 1989. But Test cricket in India was another story altogether. Until the emergence of Dravid in 1996, India, in its fifty years of cricketing history, had eked out a pitiable three Test series victories overseas, barring the two against then minnows New Zealand and Sri Lanka.
Until then watching the team travel was akin to watching helplessly, a kid being thrashed mercilessly. But as Dravid found his footing, things started to change -- India had finally found a man to stand up to its usual tormentors. No doubt, there were other stellar reinforcements to the team in the same period, but it was on the back of Dravid's monumental epics, that the team was carried from strength to strength all the way to Number 1, albeit for a brief period.

Too tall a claim? Well, here's the proof; and it's irrefutable.
Arriving seven years after Tendulkar, and having played 24 Tests fewer, Dravid still managed to score more runs than Tendulkar in India's Test wins overseas. He also averages more than any other Indian batsman in overseas Test victories and draws.
In Dravid's time at the crease, India won 15 Tests overseas (excluding the ones against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) and Dravid was Man of the Match in six of those.


Since Dravid's debut in 1996, India has won or drawn 11 Test series overseas (excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe), and Dravid was the chief architect in more than a third of those -- Man of the Series when Ganguly's India held Steve Waugh's Australia in Australia after 16 long years; Man of the series when India held Nasser Hussain's England in England after 18 years; Man of the Series when we beat Brian Lara's West Indies in the West Indies after 35 years; Man of the Match in the series decider against Pakistan in Pakistan when we beat them for the first time since the two countries were free in 1947. And get this -- before the last England series, India had lost only one Test when Dravid had scored a hundred; and he had scored 30 of them by then. That's the kind of stat that would be hard to match, even for a Tendulkar.

Yet, for all the truth that an in-depth analysis of stats may offer, it will be a grave injustice to size up Dravid by that alone.
How do you measure the value he provided in times of desperation? How do you rate the ways in which he managed to rise above himself on those occasions? He wasn't the man of the match for his 180 in Kolkata or his 93 in Perth; and rightfully so.
But he battled his own wretched form, to feature in those two astonishing turnarounds for India, against a team that was not only adept at throwing you down on the mat, but also more than happy to stomp on you when you were down and out.
How do you measure the indomitability in those performances? Not even his most ardent supporter would claim that he was a great one-day player, in spite of his ten thousand runs. Yet, remarkably, here, too, he managed to come to the party when it mattered the most -- his World Cup averages are the highest for an Indian across all World Cups.
As remarkable as his achievements are, he has attained them without the undoubted genius that Tendulkar was born with.
'Cricketers like Tendulkar and Lara were destined for greatness, while Dravid has scripted his own destiny.' by Sambit Bal, Editor of ESPNCricinf
One of the few things that is acknowledged about Dravid is that he is a team man. But, still, it's an aspect of Dravid that cannot be stressed enough. He has kept wickets when the team couldn't find a decent wicketkeeper-batsman, most notably in India's glorious run at the 2003 World Cup.
In ODIs, he has batted from positions one to eight, without so much of a fuss. More extraordinarily, in Tests, where the No. 3 spot was his to own, he has opened the innings to accommodate Yuvraj Singh at No. 6 or to fill in for Virender Sehwag or to make way for VVS Laxman when his own form wasn't up to scratch.

When a reporter asked Dravid why he didn't wait to retire in the middle of a series, so he could enjoy a fitting farewell, Dravid's response was that he played the game for the right reasons -- which was in his words "to win Test matches for India".


Dravid's no mug off the field either. While Dravid's batsmanship was in the classical mould, his off-field persona too embodied all the great values of the gentleman's game. It was only when you see a bloke like him, do you realize why it's called the Gentleman's game. Always the articulate, urbane man, he is not just India's greatest ambassador but is also a universally respected spokesperson for the game.
And, at 39, he is just as he was when he first appeared on the international scene, and has hardly ever missed a game for lack of fitness -- given how many kids break down after a couple of years these days, Dravid is but a shining example at foregoing the IPL parties and sacrificing the good life to preserve the body for the game.


The Aussies, a team we love to hate, but look up to nevertheless, have always had it right -- in spite of a galaxy of batting greats to choose from, they treasured most the less talented but the bloody minded Steve Waugh -- because he delivered when the chips were down.
Glenn McGrath,  another champion of an all-conquering Australian team, once said this of Dravid: 'If there was ever a batsman who deserves to be included in Australia late-90's team from outside Australia, then it has to be Rahul Dravid.'
But the real hero has often largely been ignored. Not that the man himself seems to care, but, still, it's a matter of fairness and what we as a cricketing nation truly respect and cherish -- runs or wins. Tendulkar may have taken the art of batting to an all-new level, but, as far as Indian cricket is concerned, there's Dravid, there's daylight and then and only then, is there Tendulkar.