Classy Klaasen digs deep to make Wankhede his Colosseum،
Heinrich Klaasen was so exhausted by the time he faced his 61st delivery, the one he brushed aside his fine leg to bring up his fourth ODI hundred, that almost immediately after he raised his bat in celebration and shouted, his knees buckled. gave way and ended up in a crouched position. His face contorted from unbridled elation expressed directly to Mark Wood, to ultimate exhaustion and finally the realization of the undeniable enormity of the moment: this was not just his first century in World Cup, it was a century against the reigning champions in a World Cup. This match against South Africa is considered a must-win match after their crushing defeat against the Netherlands earlier in the week.
As the emotions soaked in, Klaasen pulled himself together and waved to his teammates and the crowd, which included his wife and daughter, and to the sky. Then he went straight to Wood to apologize, repeatedly. Wood settled on a punch or three and Klaasen was able to reclaim his moment, but only until the next wave of weariness set in. Then he had to get back on his haunches to try to conserve the energy to punch all the way and call on the reserves. to continue finding the border. It’s a small field but today it was like a cauldron and Klaasen had to both absorb and transfer the heat.
We can’t continue to heap praise on Klaasen without recognizing the platform he’s had thanks to Reeza Hendricks – parachuted into the team after a last-minute illness at Temba Bavuma – and Rassie van der Dussen, whose reliability is often overlooked. Their 121-run stand ended by over six points and Quinton de Kock’s early dismissal failed to derail South Africa. They demonstrated the model South Africa wants to play, which allows them to get away with six specialist hitters and what could look like a long tail. But when it works, it’s a thing of beauty.
And that’s how we can describe some of the shots we’ve seen from Klaasen. His first boundary came when he walked into a superb driving cover after a delivery that was just a touch too full from Gus Atkinson. His second was a reverse sweep, well placed to escape the defensive player at the point and his fourth was the jumper, precise and powerful. It wasn’t until he scored 58 that his first six came, when he smashed Adil Rashid at mid-wicket and 10 rows into the stands, which showed off the big shots he became known for. But this round was about so much more.
Klaasen ran 29 singles and four doubles on his own and accompanied Marco Jansen for his 19 singles and four doubles. The more he ran, the harder it got. Ultimately, he wasn’t sure he could continue until his batting partner, who is nearly 10 years his junior, ordered him to.
“Marco told me I couldn’t leave the field unless I scored a hundred,” Klaasen said. “I told him I couldn’t run and he said, ‘It’s OK, just give me 100 percent on every ball you face.’ It’s a privilege to play for our country and especially in a moment like this, after a bad defeat against the Netherlands, you also have to invest deeply for your country. I have worked all my life for this, so it’s a big moment.”
Two days ago, Klaasen spoke to ESPNcricinfo about how he had to overcome his disaffection with the game on several occasions; how current white-ball coach Rob Walter begged him to stay in the national system when he almost left early in his career and how former Test captain Dean Elgar l ‘helped emerge from a dark space in the months since the effects of Covid-19 had not yet left him. Just over two years ago, Klaasen couldn’t cycle for more than five minutes without his heart rate exceeding 200 beats per minute and he feared the resulting damage would leave him out of the game for years. month.
He has since made a full recovery, but the challenges of today’s heat and humidity may have caused flashbacks to a more difficult time. “It’s like breathing hot air and every time you try to run it makes you lose more and more energy and at the end of the day your body just doesn’t want to work with you anymore” , Klaasen said. “So it’s like running in a sauna for the whole round.”
This feeling of walls enclosing you, even in the open air, was only partly created by the weather. The rest was thanks to the location. The Wankhede, hosting its first match of the tournament, was almost full, with an attendance of 24,493, and boasted the most engaged crowd for a non-Indian match in the tournament so far. Support for the teams was fairly evenly distributed and, to the casual eye and ear, there were as many English flags as South African flags and the cheers were constant. In a place where the diameter is small and the stands are high, the noise has become concentrated and the atmosphere is feverish. As South Africa’s total grew, the voices of support began to reach a crescendo, like a kettle about to reach boiling point. But instead of getting there and dying out, they stayed near peak intensity and continued.
A drenched Klaasen drenched everything until he lost his leg stump on the first ball of the final over of the innings. At that point, he had given everything he had and then some. He dragged himself off the field to a standing ovation from an enthusiastic crowd and, unsurprisingly, did not return to the field with his teammates half an hour later. He was sitting in the locker room, with a towel wrapped around him like a toga, looking like a Roman emperor. It was a fitting outfit after the Wankhede had become his Coliseum and the bowlers had only to complete the sentence he had started: “The South Africans are very good under pressure”, as he said it.
On the one hand, there can be no argument with that after this performance and based on three of their four results so far, all comprehensive wins, batting first. Between them, South Africa have five centuries in this World Cup, more than double that of any other team, scored by four different players. While there will be questions about Temba Bavuma’s form and concerns that David Miller is yet to be out, there is no better performing top six in the tournament.
On the other hand, there remains the question of whether they could do the same in chase and the only evidence of this tournament comes from their failure to chase down 246 against the Netherlands. But no one knows better than Klaasen that there are times when people and teams are brought to their knees, and whether and how they recover is what comes to define them. On this Super Saffaday, Klaasen stood tall.
