The nerves might not have shown, as he stood, poised and majestic as usual, waiting for the delivery that would break South African cricket’s most tiresome hoodoo. But when Jacques Kallis flicked a delivery off his legs for the boundary that took him past 200 for the first time, the smile from a man whose emotions rarely surface, and the emotional nod skywards in memory of the parents who watch over every innings, underlined the magnitude of the milestone. The one marker that had eluded him in his previous 142 Tests had finally arrived, and with it confirmation, indisputably, of the greatness of Jacques Henry Kallis.

That a man with so stellar a record should be so regularly maligned is an indictment on the community that purports to know and love the game, but that, sadly, is the nature of the fan. Kallis bats too slowly. Kallis is selfish. Kallis puts his own innings ahead of the team. And until yesterday, Kallis doesn’t have a double hundred, the throwaway criticism that encompassed all of the disdain the Kallis detractors revelled in.

But with the double hundred finally recorded, and in remarkably good time at that, Kallis now demands the perspective that must afford him greatness. The sheer weight of runs, headlined by a staggering 38 Test match hundreds, mark him out as an extraordinary batsman. Add in a bowler closing in on 300 wickets (and capable of a rousing turn of pace, as Mark Boucher’s bruised gloves will readily attest to), and a pair of hands as safe and reassuring as his presence at the crease, and Sir Garfield Sobers, hitherto owner of the mantle, now has a genuine rival as Greatest Cricketer Ever.

The generational gap means few can objectively assess the comparison between Kallis and Sobers, but the case for Kallis is compelling nonetheless. The numbers are overwhelming: in a game obsessed with detail, South Africa’s soft-spoken all-rounder is the statistician’s pin-up boy. But cricket’s obsession with figures masks the reality all too often, and the Kallis story goes well beyond a dizzying page of records on CricInfo — and all the more so when you address the alleged flaw in the man’s batting.

Kallis, supposedly, bats too slowly. Draw selectively from his record, and you can find evidence to prop up this assertion: the run-a-ball hundred is not the Kallis trademark. His strokeplay is elegant, classic, delightful to watch, but in the Twenty20 era, the more brutal and inventive game of a De Villiers or Pietersen can make the Kallis game look sedate and old-fashioned. Similarly, the very quality that has wrecked the spirit of so many attacks — the obdurate wall of resistance — prompts derision from the inconsistent fan demanding more flourishing strokeplay.

But while Kallis has shown, on occasion, that he can batter an attack into submission as well as he can withstand it, he has a style that’s well established for good reason. South Africa’s top six might now be a world class collective (a double hundred for the Cobras on Sunday still won’t be enough to get JP Duminy into the side for the India series), but go back to the formative years of Kallis the Test cricketer, and you have a far different look to the South African top order. Openers came and went, players shifted position, and fickle selectors and inconsistent performances made for a team in terminal flux.

One constant offset that flux, however. Called to the wicket all too often with the ball still venomously new, and changing batting partners as regularly as he did gloves, Kallis grew into the role of guardian: protecting the South African innings by protecting his own, and anchoring the team to totals that would give the bowlers (himself amongst them) a fighting chance. It was circumstance that demanded a conservative approach, and it produced a batsman whose wicket quickly became one of cricket’s most prized.

Imagine, for a moment, that Kallis had entered the game not in the uncertain top order of South Africa, but instead in the established authority of Australia. Coming in at three after Slater and Hayden had murdered another pack of fast bowlers, and knowing that failure wasn’t fatal, that Boon, Waugh, Ponting, Waugh, Martyn et al would almost certainly compensate. Freed from the weight of responsibility he’s worn unflinchingly for so long, a more cavalier cricketer may well have emerged.

But even if that is the case, the batsman we’ve been gifted with is one to cherish. Best highlighted by a fighting century in Australia against an attack led by a lethal leg-spinner, Kallis has marshalled South African defences, subdued hungry attacks, and time and again been the architect of his team’s success. And now, with the double hundred that eluded Atherton, Azhruddin, Mark Waugh, Haynes, and many other modern stars, the Kallis legacy is complete.

Except that it isn’t just yet, because behind the blank demeanour and the bubble he bats in so concertedly, is a hunger for the game that isn’t sated. We see it in his bowling from time to time, happy to follow up a short ball with the verbal jousting that reflects his competitive nature, but most tellingly, we saw it when he raised the bat, looked to the skies, and celebrated his sought-after milestone. As one, the Centurion crowd celebrated, a sustained tribute that spoke of genuine adoration for one of our own. And that crowd response must in turn be South Africa’s, for while he’s not done yet, his legend is engraved in cricketing lore. The Greatest Cricketer Ever? Jacques Henry Kallis, the title is yours.