South African batter Heinrich Klaasen expressed frustration at his teammates getting out on half-trackers in the third T20I against India. He feels Centurion pitch was conducive for batters and they failed to cash in on the assistance and chase down the score to win the game.
Klaasen’s comments pointed out the uncanny dismissals of a few batters. Opener Ryan Rickelton was playing well, before dragging Arshdeep Singh’s half-tracker on to the stumps. Meanwhile, Reeza Hendricks, who looked in total control with consistent boundaries looked clueless while getting stumped by Varun Chakravarthy.
Then, Tristan Stubbs tried to reverse sweep Axar Patel’s length ball to get trapped LBW. Then, skipper Aiden Markram, who was clearing the fence with ease against Varun Chakravarthy, could not judge the spinner’s length, and was caught at the deep mid-wicket region.
“It was a fantastic pitch, but we got out to half-trackers,” Klaasen was quoted as saying by Indian Express. “Which makes you want to almost… Yeah, you want to break stuff.”
Meanwhile, Klaasen played a good hand by scoring 41 off 22, before failing to clear the deep backward point fences off a fullish ball by Arshdeep. Although, Marco Jansen played a sensational knock of 54 off 17, South Africa fell short by 11 runs in their chase of 220. As a result, India are now leading the four-match series 2-1.
Heinrich Klaasen wanted to play a five-match T20I series against India
Heinrich Klaasen made his displeasure known about the lack of series decider across all formats. He pointed out that if they win the fourth T20I, the series will end at 2-2, and there will not be any final game to find out the winner for the series.
“That’s the nature of where we are in South African cricket,” Klaasen said. “We don’t play any more five-match series. Our Test team are playing two-Test series, which is ridiculous. How nice would it be if we win on Friday, and Sunday is another game that we’re going into at two-all?”
The 33-year-old revealed that players are also disappointed with a lack of games against quality teams. They feel two or three games in a series isn’t fulfilling for them. Meanwhile, he lauded the Indian side for readying two teams, with one playing T20I series with them and the other preparing for the test series against Australia.
Heinrich Klaasen also hoped that the Proteas would make a strong comeback in the final T20I by making small tweaks and making sure they don’t lose the series.
