KEY POINTS:
PERTH - Jacques Kallis has long been seen as the man to hold South Africa's innings together in tough times and now that so many other batsmen are firing, he has been left behind.
One of cricket's all-time greats, the 125-test veteran has a marvellous record of 9801
runs at 55.06 and 245 wickets at 30.92 with his seamers.
But after a breathtaking 2007 (1210 runs at 86.42 plus 20 wickets), his numbers haven't been so great in 2008.
The 33-year-old right-hander with the technique to withstand any challenge is averaging only 28.83 while three teammates - Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla and Neil McKenzie - have hit over a thousand runs each.
South Africa's batting is looking very solid and after going unbeaten in their past nine series, Kallis acknowledges it's a good time to be trying to win a series in Australia for the first time.
It remains to be seen whether Kallis can dig himself out of his batting slump in time to play a key role in any victories that may come along this summer.
"There have been key moments where we perhaps haven't played as well as we could have and Australia have taken those key moments," Kallis said on Tuesday as he began his fourth Australian test tour.
"The guys would have learnt from that. But the way the side has played over the last two years, it's probably as good cricket as we've played since readmission (in the early 1990s).
"We come here with a lot of confidence."
South Africa haven't won a test series in Australia and last beat Australia in a series in 1969-70.
"I probably didn't have my most successful tour of England (this year) - hopefully I can turn it around on this tour," Kallis said.
"It's one of the tours that I think everybody looks forward to playing.
"Certainly I am. If I can play a big role and turn it around it will mean as much as anything to me in my career."
He says it makes little difference if he is no longer seen as the team's star batsman.
"We've got a really settled top six now ... so we've got a lot of players who have produced the goods over the last couple of years," he said.
"Any one of them can walk in and get a big hundred and change the nature of the game.
"Hopefully it will be my turn but if not, one of the other guys will come through so it doesn't really bother me."
- AAP