International retirement has given me time to work on T20s: Jacques Kallis

Jacques Kallis

Former South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis has said that retirement from international cricket has allowed him to focus on improving his batting in Twenty20 cricket. Kallis scored 54* off 40 balls during Kolkata Knight Riders’ semi-final encounter against Australia’s Hobart Hurricanes on Thursday, thereby helping the Indian Premier League (IPL) champions reach their first ever Champions League T20 (CLT20) final in addition to extending their unbeaten run of games to 14.

"I am playing less cricket now. So I am more enthusiastic and more energised for the amount of cricket I do play now," he told clt20.com. "The biggest thing is it has given me more opportunity to work on my T20 cricket. I have put a lot of time into it and it is nice to see the hard work paying off. I have worked on giving myself bigger scoring options and allowing myself to become a better T20 player."

Kallis, who retired from Tests last year, announced his international retirement from all formats in July following a poor One Day International (ODI) series against Sri Lanka, where he had a shocking return of 5 runs from 3 ODIs. His form might have evaded him, of late, but his vast experience continues to prove handy for the Knight Riders.

In their run chase of 141 yesterday, the Kolkata-based franchise were in a spot of bother after losing the wickets of Gautam Gambhir and Robin Uthappa early. But Kallis, who walked in at No.3, steadied the ship and racked up a partnership of 63 for the 3rd wicket along with Manish Pandey, taking the team over the line.

Shoaib Malik sees great future for Kuldeep Yadav

The Hurricanes, meanwhile, should thank their overseas recruit Shoaib Malik for managing to put up a competitive total of 140 on the board. Malik scored 66 not off 46 balls, consisting of four boundaries and four sixes, and was the only one Hurricanes’ batsman to come to grips with the spinners of KKR. He was harsh on Kuldeep Yadav, a 19-year-old chinaman bowler, in particular, taking him for 21 runs off the penultimate over of the innings.

"We practised a lot against spinners before the game. Credit to the KKR spinners for bowling the way they did today. This is the first time I played against Kuldeep Yadav and I have to say he is a really good bowler," Malik told clt20.com. "He does need to work hard on his bowling if he has to stay at the top. He is just 19 years old and the way he is bowling is exceptional. If he keeps working hard, one day he will be one of the main bowlers for India."

Malik added that he would have liked to accelerate earlier on in his innings but couldn’t do so because of wickets falling at regular intervals at the other end.

"I did not want to play the way I did in the first phase of my innings," Malik said. "Whenever I thought about accelerating we always had a wicket falling at the other end. When you are losing wickets your preference as a batsman is to bat the full 20 overs and that is what I did."