How Jacques Kallis is helping former ‘arch-enemy’ England on Sri Lanka tour

“So it’s kind of the norm in the modern world and I really have thoroughly enjoyed it.  It’s a good bunch of boys with a lot of youngsters who have bright futures ahead of them so it’s nice I can perhaps help them achieve the goals and dreams they want to achieve.”

Kallis likes what he sees. He describes Sam Curran as the best young all-rounder in the world, and thinks English batting is in good hands.

“I’ve been very impressed with them,” He said. “Firstly, from a game plan point of view, understanding batting, they’ve got a lot of knowledge. And they’re hungry to succeed. Coming through a tour of South Africa, where the wickets can be quite demanding, to have performed like they did, certainly that’s very heartening and they’ll have taken a lot of lessons away from that. As they will here.

“They’re a young batting side with a lot of guys who will learn a lot. They’re going to make mistakes along the way but that’s ok, that’s how you learn and grow, but I think there’s a lot of youngsters that are going to score a lot of Test runs for England.”

England’s gain, clearly, is South Africa’s loss. He was working with the Proteas when England toured a year ago, but believes he “wasn’t allowed to be involved because Cricket South Africa said there would be no more white consultants”. CSA denied in September that it would only work with black consultants.

“I suppose it’s the way of our country – a lot of players have fallen away because of needing players of colour involved,” he said. “It’s tough but we understand where it comes from. It is sad [the way his role ended] but the times we are living in at the moment”.