Kallis creates history ..

South Africa's leading batsman Jacques Kallis has become only the 23rd player in history to achieve 900 rating points in the LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen. Kallis joined the exclusive club following a prolific series against Pakistan in which he scored three hundreds and a fifty in four innings, playing a key role in his side's 1-0 success. The right-hander's aggregate of 421 runs was the highest by any player in the series and his three hundreds have taken his career tally to 27, joint seventh in the all-time list alongside the Australia duo of Matthew Hayden and Allan Border. Figures like that have lifted him to his career-high rating, as well as third place in the latest LG ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen. Kallis moved ahead of Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara and now has only Ricky Ponting of Australia and Pakistan's Mohammad Yousuf above him in the listings. The quartet all stand at 900 rating points or above, a tally achieved only if the player is prolific over a long period of time, and it is the first time in history that four batsmen have stood at 900 points or more at the same time. South Africa finished the series with three batsmen in the top 20 with, in addition to Kallis, captain Graeme Smith in 13th place (up four spots), one behind fellow left-hander Ashwell Prince. Kallis also maintained his stranglehold on top place in the all-rounder Rankings for clear of England's Andrew Flintoff (who has undergone a fourth operation on his injured left ankle) and team-mate Shaun Pollock. In the bowling list, Proteas' pace bowler Makhaya Ntini is still in second position behind Sri Lanka's talismanic spinner Muttiah Muralidaran but he lost ground and rating points during the series. Pollock dropped two places to fifth after being left out of the side for the matches in KarachiSouth Africa bowlers on the rise - albeit still outside the top 20 - are fast man Dale Steyn and left-arm spinner Paul Harris. Harris took 12 wickets in the two Tests to suggest the Proteas may have found a long-term spin option at last and those figures are enough to see him placed 34th in the updated listings, while Steyn, with nine wickets, now lies 28th, five spots behind team-mate Andre Nel. – Sapa