Durban’s Super Giants batter Heinrich Klaasen dug himself out of the hole he found himself in for the better part of season 3 of the Betway SA20 league.
In a late season come-back, Klaasen shot a 66 from 43 against MI Cape Town on Saturday night in Cape Town, laden with five 4s and four 6s and a strike rate of 153. He and Kane Williamson put up a 100 partnership for Durban.
The player and batter of the season from last year was pushed back down the batting order to sixth as opposed to third, which he arrived at in the match against the Paarl Royals on Thursday.
The 33-year-old Protea-capped batsman found himself in poor form this season, and even losing his wicket twice in the same fashion, against Paarl Royals and in the previous match against Cape Town.
Klaasen knocked the ball up gently right into the hands of opposing fielders and was evidently frustrated about it Klaasen said he lost sleep over his last innings against Paarl, but just found himself in unusual circumstances during other appearances.
“I just found ways to get out that were unusual. I didn’t lose a lot of sleep over it, only lost sleep over the last innings I played where I made two similar mistakes and got out almost in similar ways.
“It has been a frustrating campaign and when the game doesn’t go for you, you need to find ways to just turn that a little bit. Thinking back to my couple innings, I think I didn’t spend enough time with the ball and watching it closely onto the bat.
“I played well within myself just to get to some score for the team. We needed to get a partnership there with Kano.
“Sometimes that's the innings you need to find the big score and it was easier to pull the trigger when I was 30 of 30. It's part of the game and you just need to get used to it,” Klaasen said.
Klaasen will have two more opportunities to put runs on the board for DSG while the tournament is still in normal match play.
DSG will need to pull two rabbits out of a hat and accumulate at least 10 points if they hope to make the play-offs.