Boucher wants Kallis back in the Proteas’ corner

National cricket coach Mark Boucher confirmed on Thursday that he has his sights set on getting Jacques Kallis back into the Proteas fold.

Kallis has just started a controversial stint with England as their batting consultant in Sri Lanka. But South Africa’s most prolific run-scorer was almost forced into the position by the negative reaction he, Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith received when he was appointed Proteas batting consultant in late 2019 and by a subsequent Cricket South Africa decision that White consultants were no longer allowed.

That ruling has subsequently been put on ice by the interim board that is now running cricket.

“Losing Jacques to England is a bitter pill to swallow. He was working with our guys on an individual basis, someone like Temba Bavuma would Skype him and spoke very highly of his work. But then we were getting messages that we could no longer use him, so it was a massive loss. Jacques was a very good cricketer, he can add a lot of knowledge, so why wouldn’t you want him in the set-up?

“But I picked up from the media that Judith February [interim board director] said we were allowed White consultants again so the rules have changed a bit and I would certainly like to get him back in some sort of role, maybe even against Australia after the Pakistan tour. A lot of players have spoken highly of the knowledge he imparted in a short space of time.

“So Jacques is on my radar, but we need to treat it with care because he has a lot of other opportunities around the world. I know he would love to work with South African cricket again, but we must make sure we don’t mess him around,” Boucher said on Thursday.

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