Sthalekar, Kallis, Abbas inducted into ICC Hall of Fame

Former ODI captain-turned-commentator Lisa Sthalekar is the fifth Australian women's player to be installed in the International Cricket Council's Hall of Fame.

Sthalekar has been elevated to the game's pantheon alongside ex-South Africa allrounder Jacques Kallis and Pakistan run machine Zaheer Abbas, who followed a celebrated playing career with roles in cricket management and administration.

The annual announcement of new inductees to the Hall of Fame, which was established in 2009 and now bears the name of 93 greats, was made by the ICC today.

"I am deeply humbled to receive this honour," said Sthalekar. "Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that I would ever get to join such an illustrious group of players.

Sthalekar, 41, joins an elite list of nine women in the Hall of Fame which includes her former national teammates Belinda Clark (inducted 2011), Karen Rolton (2016) and Cathryn Fitzpatrick (2019) as well as Australian trailblazer Betty Wilson who was inducted in 2015, five years after her death.

The spin-bowling all-rounder played eight Tests, 125 ODIs and 54 T20Is for Australia from 2001-13, scoring almost 4,000 runs (including three centuries) and claiming 229 wickets.

"Lisa is a legend of Australian and international cricket and this honour from the ICC recognises that," said Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings. 

"There is no coincidence that the Australian, NSW and Sydney Sixers teams she represented achieved extraordinary levels of success.

"Her work off the field since retirement has been equally inspirational … On behalf of everyone in the Australian cricket family, we congratulate Lisa on a wonderful accolade."

She captained Australia in three ODIs against New Zealand in 2006, edged out her then skipper Rolton by one vote to be named Women's International Cricketer of the Year in 2007 and was a member of four Australia World Cup-winning teams across the 50-over and T20 formats.

Since retiring from the game after her team's 2013 World Cup win in Mumbai, Sthalekar has earned renown as a coach and through her work as a commentator in some of the game's pre-eminent competitions including the women's and men's Big Bash Leagues in Australia and the Indian Premier League.

Kallis becomes the fourth South African men's player to be added to the ICC's Hall of Fame, after Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards (among the original inductees in 2009) and fast bowler Allan Donald (2019).

Rated alongside West Indian Sir Garfield Sobers as the greatest all-round cricketer the game has seen, Kallis played 166 Tests and 328 ODIs (as well as 25 T20Is) for the Proteas from 1995-2014.

The 44-year-old's bald statistics – 25,534 international runs and 577 wickets – paint a stark picture of his contribution, but reveal an even more remarkable tale when placed in context.

He stands alone as the sole player in more than 140 years of Test cricket to complete the 10,000 runs-250 wickets double, while Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya is the only other to have achieved that feat in ODIs.

Kallis sits third on the list of all-time Test run scorers (behind fellow Hall of Famers Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting) with 13,289 but boasts a superior average (55.37) to his pair of famous peers as well as every other player to top 10,000 Test runs bar Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara (57.41).

He received the ICC's highest individual honour, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for international player of the year, in 2005 and holds the record for most player-of-the-match awards in Test cricket since that honour was introduced in the 1980s.

Zaheer Abbas not only served as Pakistan captain during his 78-Test and 62-ODI match career spanning from 1969-1985, he subsequently became Pakistan men's team manager and an ICC match referee.

In 2015, he assumed the post of ICC chairman, becoming the third former cricketer (after England's Sir Colin Cowdrey and West Indies Sir Clyde Walcott) to hold that position.

An elegant but insatiable batsman, the bespectacled Zaheer announced himself to the world by scoring 274 against England at Edgbaston in 1971 in just his second Test.

Four of Zaheer's first five Test centuries were scores of 150-plus (including three double-centuries) and – by dint of his long association with Gloucestershire in the UK county competition – he became the first Asian player to post 100 first-class centuries.

He reached that milestone by scoring 215 against India at Lahore in 1982, thereby becoming the second cricketer (after England's Sir Geoffrey Boycott) to reach their 100th century in a Test match.

Zaheer was a member of the Rest of the World team that played five Tests and three ODIs in Australia in 1971-72 after the cancellation of a proposed tour by South Africa due to their ongoing race-based apartheid laws.

The now 73-year-old was also among a group of Pakistan players who signed with Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in 1977, and led his country in 14 Test matches (including Pakistan's 1983-84 tour to Australia) and 13 ODIs between 1982 and 1984.

Zaheer becomes the sixth Pakistan men's player elevated to the Hall of Fame after his former teammates Imran Khan, Javed Miandad and Wasim Akram (all inducted 2009), as well as legendary batter Hanif Mohammad (also 2009) and fast bowler Waqar Younis (2013).