Jacques Kallis appointed as South Africa's batting coach for the upcoming Test series against England

After having endured one of the worst phases in their cricket- both on and off the field, South African cricket has started with the rebuilding process. And, changes continue to galore. After the appointment of former captain Graeme Smith as Cricket South Africa’s director, few more former cricketers are back into the set-up with Mark Boucher named as the head coach of the national side till 2023 and former batsman Ashwell Prince to spearhead the South African A team for their tour games in Benoni ahead of the four-match Test series against England

After his appointment as cricket director, Graeme Smith had asserted that he will be bringing in a lot more former cricketers like Jacques Kallis into the set-up. And, it has been confirmed now as the former all-rounder has been named as South Africa batting consultant for the upcoming summer.

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 took to Twitter to announce the development where they wrote:

“#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”

South Africa has named six uncapped players in their Test squad against England

Ever since he took over the reins as CSA director, Graeme Smith has been quite vocal about what needs to be done in order to revive South African cricket.

“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” Smith said as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.

South Africa recently announced their squad for the upcoming four-Test series against England where they named as many as six uncapped players in their set-up like Rassie van der Dussen, Beuran Hendricks, Dane Paterson, Pieter Malan. The four-match Test series will kickstart with the Boxing Day Test on December 26.

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