Kallis ton as Proteas take charge

1/2
29 December 2013

Jacques Kallis marked his farewell Test for South Africa with a century against India on day four of the second match in Durban.

Kallis announced on Christmas Day that he would bring down the curtain on his Test career and was given a guard of honour as he walked to the crease in the morning session on Saturday.

And almost 24 hours later, he brought up his 45th Test ton with a nudge through mid-on off Ravindra Jadeja to bring up the landmark off 273 balls with 13 fours.

That left the hosts 342 for five after 120 overs in reply to India's first-innings total of 334.

Kallis eventually fell for 115, but Robin Peterson and Faf du Plessis put on 110 for the eighth wicket to help the hosts reach tea on 497 for eight, a lead of 163 runs.

They had begun the day on 299 for five and Kallis, along with nightwatchman Dale Steyn, set about edging South Africa towards a first-innings lead.

The scoring was slow but fast-bowler Steyn was making a contribution as he matched his more illustrious partner in finding the boundary in the early stages.

And he was quick to embrace Kallis when he brought up his ton with all of the Indian team applauding the man who at the time was the fourth-highest run-scorer in Test history.

Steyn continued to find the boundary as Kallis made calmer progress and, with a single off the final ball of the 132nd over, the latter overtook Rahul Dravid to move to third on the scorers list with 13,289 runs to his name.

He fell just three balls later, however, as he top-edged a Jadeja delivery into the gloves of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The 38-year-old exited to rapturous applause as his team-mates came to greet him on his way back to the pavilion.

There was still business to be done in the middle and Steyn was next to go for 44 as he lashed at a wide one from Zaheer Khan with Dhoni claiming the catch.

Peterson and Du Plessis ensured the hosts continued to make hay, with the former reaching 61 before becoming Zaheer's second victim.

Du Plessis was run out for 43 and South Africa lost tailender Morne Morkel for a duck as they were bowled out for 500, a lead of 166.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in