“It’s a blessing from above that this innings came for me at this time of my career.” – Heinrich Klaasen
Telford Vice | Cape Town
THE poor man’s Quinton de Kock. It’s a slap in Heinrich Klaasen’s face to describe him in those terms, but he can take it. He’s had plenty of experience of being underrated and overlooked, of being doubted and damned by faint praise. And he’s still standing.
“I decided that if I get out today I’d rather go my way and try to be positive,” Klaasen told a press conference in Cuttack on Sunday after scoring a career-best 81 off 46 balls to guide South Africa to victory in the second T20I, and with that a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. “It was just one of those days that it came off. It’s a blessing from above that this innings came for me at this time of my career.”
Among South Africa’s current players, only De Kock, David Miller, Reeza Hendricks, Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma have scored more runs in the shortest format — all of them except Bavuma in more innings than Klaasen. Only Aiden Markram has a higher strike rate than Klaasen.
And yet Klaasen, who made his debut in February 2018 and has captained South Africa in seven T20Is, has played in only 54 out of a possible 134 matches for South Africa across the formats. He has featured in 21 series, but been involved in all the games in a rubber only 10 times.
Some of Klaasen’s absences are explained by injuries, and it doesn’t help his cause that he is competing for game time with De Kock, the leading South Africa batter of his generation and one of the best wicketkeepers in the game. That teams have at least four vacancies for middle order batters like Klaasen, only two for openers like De Kock — in white-ball matches — and only one for ’keepers like De Kock and Klaasen, complicates the issue. If someone can keep and open the batting, that’s two important boxes ticked.
But De Kock’s retirement from Test cricket in December didn’t earn Klaasen, who has scored 4,893 runs at 45.30 with 11 centuries in his 127 first-class innings, more cracks of the nod. Instead the vacancy was filled by Kyle Verreynne, who is almost six years the 30-year-old Klaasen’s junior and had a first-class average of 51.05 when he made his Test debut a year ago. So it’s up to Klaasen to take whatever chances that come his way, like the one he was given by De Kock being ruled out in Cuttack because of a hand injury.
Sometimes, there has been room for De Kock and Klaasen in South Africa’s XI. De Kock opened the batting and Klaasen kept wicket in the third Test in Ranchi in October 2019 — Klaasen’s only match in the format — and De Kock has been behind the stumps with Klaasen in the field in 24 white-ball internationals. But South Africa’s team isn’t big enough for both of them to play together more regularly.
Bavuma wouldn’t have chosen to be without the devastating De Kock on Sunday, but he was happy he had Klaasen on hand. “It was a fantastic innings by ‘Klaasy’; fantastic ball-striking by him,” Bavuma said in an audio file released by CSA on Monday. South Africa were chasing just 149, but with Bhuvneshwar Kumar in sniping form they had slumped to 29/3 when Klaasen came to the crease in the sixth over. When he holed out to long-on to the last ball of the 17th, South Africa needed only five more runs to win. Klaasen’s eagle eyed, sweet swinging hitting — more than 70% of his runs were smote in fours and sixes — dominated stands of 64 off 41 balls with Bavuma and 51 off 28 with Miller. “I tried to hang around as much as I could and allow a guy like ‘Klaasy’ to get himself in, kind of play around him,” Bavuma said.
Besides a big bat, Klaasen brought sharp thinking to the equation. “I said to Temba that the spinners were the guys we needed to target,” Klaasen said. “The seamers were a little bit up and down, so we could take less risks against them. If we could take the spinners down properly, that’s most of the work done.” Thanks largely to the stellar Bhuvneshwar’s 4/13, India’s economy rate in the 13 overs of seam they bowled was a sparkling 6.00. Their 5.2 overs of spin were more than twice as expensive: an economy rate of 13.13.
“A freak injury with ‘Quinnie’ and his hand [put Klaasen in the XI], and ‘Klaasy’ took that opportunity with both hands,” Bavuma said. “He’s a big player for us in the middle of the innings. We know what he can do. We back him 100%. We have a lot of belief in him, and he showed again why he’s a part of this team.”
Team management have told Cricbuzz that De Kock underwent scans on his hand on Monday, but that his status won’t be confirmed before the third T20I in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday. So Reeza Hendricks seems set to open the batting again and ’keeper Klaasen is likely to be given another go in the middle order, and that with the series waiting to be won. If Klaasen delivers another performance like Sunday’s, India will struggle to keep the rubber alive.
South Africa are stronger when De Kock is in the mix, but they aren’t weaker when the poor man’s De Kock plays instead. Not for nothing, ‘Klaasy’ rhymes with classy.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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