“A lot of people were gunning for my head and a lot of staff members have backed me. This is one way to say thank you to them.” – Heinrich Klaasen
Telford Vice | Cape Town
UNTIL the last two overs of India’s innings on Sunday, it seemed South Africa were set to continue their brief but charmed relationship with Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium. The visitors had played there only once before — in a T20I in October 2015 — but their six-wicket win was India’s only loss in their last nine completed games at the ground going back to January 2007.
Here we go again, the South Africans might have been thinking after 18 overs. India had dwindled to 118/6, and Dinesh Karthik had faced only 14 balls and Harshal Patel just four. Anrich Nortjé and Dwaine Pretorius, who would bowl those last two overs, had taken 3/46 in the six overs they had sent down between them: an economy rate of 7.67 and a strike rate of 12.00.
The full house of 45,000 were restless with unease. India have played on 49 grounds at home. Only on nine of them do they have a better win/loss ratio than at the Barabati. But the national team had last visited the ground in December 2019 for an ODI against West Indies, and before that in December 2017. Were the crowd’s lesser spotted guests to let them down? Only three of India’s first 18 overs had yielded 10 or more runs each, and eight had gone for five or fewer each. Was something not much better than the 92 all out — India’s total in that 2015 T20I against South Africa — on the cards?
The nervous murmuring in the stands only grew as Nortjé limited Harshal and Karthik to singles off the first four balls of the 19th. Karthik pulled and cut fours off the last two deliveries, which were separated by a wide. Pretorius began the last over with an off-side half-volley, which Harshal duly clubbed through mid-off for four. Harshal missed a big-eyed slash at a widish leg cutter, and took a single to cover off another. That allowed Karthik into the frame to launch consecutive sixes over mid-off and down the ground, mighty blows that flew far into the suddenly giddy crowd. A mere single trickled off the bottom edge of Karthik’s bat to end the innings, but he had done his bit with a 21-ball 30 not out. Those last two overs had gifted the total 30 precious runs.
Considering India had lost 4/50 from the seventh to the 14th overs, showing the wisdom of Temba Bavuma not deploying a spinner until the ninth over and for only four overs in all, their 148/6 represented a significant recovery. The fans seemed if not happy then at least satisfied that their team were putting up a fight. They probably hadn’t factored in that only in a dozen of India’s 62 T20Is at home have their recorded lower totals.
The odds were surely tilted in India’s favour by a pitch that wasn’t ill-suited to the occasion, but which did demand the full attention of all who batted on it — a surface that required perfect timing and steady application; qualities that aren’t always apparent among batting successes in this format. As David Miller said in his television interview: “If it’s keeping low every now and again, it does get into your head. You’re never sure whether to go forward or back.” Quinton de Kock’s absence because of a wrist injury further complicated South Africa’s task, and was keenly felt when masterful swing bowling by Bhuvneshwar Kumar did for Reeza Hendricks, Pretorius and Rassie van der Dussen inside the powerplay with only 29 runs scored. Bhuvneshwar “got the ball to talk” Bavuma acknowledged on television.
Enter De Kock’s replacement behind the stumps, Heinrich Klaasen, to play perhaps the innings of his life and certainly his first for South Africa since October 2021. Invariably a cool head under pressure, Klaasen went several degrees cooler still in a stand of 64 off 41 balls with Bavuma and an effort of 51 off 28 with Miller. That the cussed, curatorial Bavuma should have scored only 15 runs with Klaasen is no surprise for a selfless soul who is content to get the job done without fanfare. But it takes some doing to overshadow the marauding Miller, who faced just six deliveries fewer than Klaasen while they were together but contributed exactly half as many as the wicketkeeper-batter’s 32 runs to the partnership.
The sweat shook off Klaasen as his innings wore on, and some of his singles were hobbled rather than run because of cramp. But he kept swinging sweetly and connecting crunchily, hitting seven fours and five sixes in his 46-ball 81 — which was ended just five runs away from victory when he holed out to Harshal to end the 17th. Had being able to study the pitch at close quarters during India’s innings helped him come to terms with how to bat on it, he was asked on television. “It always gives you an indication, but that didn’t make it easier.”
Klaasen has played 54 matches for South Africa in all formats, always done a solid job in the gloves and pads, and made a white-ball century along with seven half-centuries. But, in a cricket culture that is frequently dazzled by the emphatic and that doesn’t often appreciate the understated, Klaasen is the kind of player too readily deemed expendable. “A lot of people were gunning for my head and a lot of staff members have backed me,” he said. “This is one way to say thank you to them.”
The gratitude to Klaasen for this win, nailed down by four wickets with 10 balls to spare, and meaning South Africa need only one more from the three remaining games to claim the series, should go a lot further than the dressing room.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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