County Cricket / Ralph Ellis / 07 April 2010 /

Jacques Kallis may not look like your stereotypical modern cricketer but appearances can be deceptive and he's taken IPL 3 by storm, proving how adaptable and resourceful a cricketer he is. All good news for his Bangalore Royal Challengers, says Ralph Ellis.

If you've ever played Sunday morning football you'll know that feeling when you look at the opposition as the game's about to kick off and see the fat, old bloke at centre half. You laugh and think 'easy day today', and 'we'll win this one.' And then the fat old bloke runs the game for the next 90 minutes and your centre forward never gets a sniff.

Jacques Kallis is probably cricket's equivalent. When the South African walks to the crease, or picks up the ball to start bowling, the first thought is that the era of cricketers as athletes has totally passed him by. A hundred runs or five wickets later you realise his appearance doesn't make much difference.

With more than 10,000 runs and 250 wickets to his name in both Tests and One Day Internationals, his limpet-like ability to protect his wicket and nagging consistency bowling on a length has made him one of the game's greatest ever all-rounders. The interesting development from India is that at the age of 34 he now appears to have sorted out the one part of the game where he hadn't excelled until now - Twenty20 cricket.

He's only ever played ten games for his country, and his previous efforts with Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League have been, to be kind, disappointing. In 2008 he averaged barely 18 and his four wickets cost 77.75 runs each. Last year it was slightly better with the bat at an average 28, and six wickets that cost 58.83.

But 2010 has been a different story altogether. The 54 he made on Sunday trying to hold off a defeat by Delhi Daredevils took his total for the series to 425 and suggests that a man who has extracted every last ounce from the talent available has worked at adapting his considerable technique to the short form of the game.

His form has helped restrict Eoin Morgan, the great hope of England's T20 World Cup squad and the only English player to be signed up in this year's IPL auction besides Rajasthan's Michael Lumb, to playing only a bit part so far.

In fact it's fascinating that in a sport which is supposed to be all about the spectacular "one-day specialist" batsmen, it is two of the Test stalwarts who are leading the run charts. Just 31 runs away from Kallis is Sachin Tandulkar, who won't even be playing for India's team in the World T20 Cup next month because he's retired from international T20.

They are both currently [2.24] to finish the IPL as the competition's top batsman, and behind them only Murali Vijay ([16.0]) and Naman Ojha ([50.0]) have even got past 300 runs in the series.

Kallis will be in action again tomorrow when third placed Bangalore are [1.67] to beat Deccan Chargers, and his form - plus the potential of Kevin Pietersen - makes Bangalore an interesting outside bet to be tournament winners at [6.4].

Five things you might not know about Jacques Kallis

Born October 1975 in Pinelands, Cape Town, he played in the same school cricket team as Duncan Fletcher's son Michael. Duncan helped set up the batting technique of the young Jacques

His father Henry encouraged him to play club cricket in England but after a brief spell at Netherfield he was sent back home and told he wasn't good enough

He scored five consecutive Test centuries in 2004, and his response on missing out on what would have been a world record equalling sixth was to employ sports psychologist Paddy Upton 'to help me play every ball on its merits'

His long-standing girlfriend is South African model Shamone Jardim - he previously dated another model and former Miss South Africa Cindy Nel.

He's launched a charity foundation that pays to develop the potential of promising schoolboy cricketers

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