Jacques Kallis Withdraws From South Africa’s ICC Champions Trophy Squad

South Africa have suffered a major blow with the news that all-rounder Jacques Kallis has withdrawn from their ICC Champions Trophy squad due to personal reasons.

The 37-year-old has not been included in the final 15-man squad for next month's tournament which is being held in England, though as of yet there has been no indication as to the full reasons why Kallis has decided to pull out.

Kallis will be a major loss for South Africa as the vastly experienced all-rounder averages over 45 in one-day international cricket and has taken some 270 wickets in his 321 matches.

However, there was some positive news as JP Duminy returns to the squad after six months of rehabilitation from ankle and Achilles injuries.

Selector Andrew Hudson also believes it is the perfect opportunity for left-hander David Miller to show his quality.

"Jacques' experience will obviously be missed but it does create an opportunity for David Miller, whose recent form has been most impressive," said Huson.

"It also gives a young player the chance to make his mark ahead of the ICC World Cup in 2015."

On the return of Duminy, he added: "JP is well on the way to a full recovery. The latest information is that he will be fully fit to play his part in all three disciplines by the end of the month.

"He is a very experienced limited-overs cricketer and we don't anticipate his lack of match practice being any kind of problem.

"His return adds a lot of balance to the side and that, together with the presence of two batting all-rounders in Faf du Plessis and Farhaan Behardien, means that we now have the option to go into the tournament with seven specialist batsmen."

Two of the more high profile names to miss out were slow bowlers Roleof van der Merwe and Imran Tahir who were both named in the provisional 30-man squad.

South Africa squad: De Villiers (captain), H Amla, F Behardien, JP Duminy, F du Plessis, C Ingram, R Kleinveldt, R McLaren, D Miller, M Morkel, R Peterson, A Phangiso, G Smith, Dale Steyn, L Tsotsobe.