Jarrod Kimber, CS Chiwanza
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Varun Chakravarthy pitched the ball short of a length, just outside off-stump. Heinrich Klaasen hung back in the crease, waiting for the perfect moment to smash it for six. The South African was moving through the gears, transforming into beast mode against spinners on the way to his third IPL fifty when Sunrisers Hyderabad took on Kolkata Knight Riders in the third game of IPL 2024. He finished the match with 63 from 29 balls. The spinners he faced were smashed for 33 from 14.
Nine South African batters have scored 1,000 runs or more against spin in T20 cricket, but none as well as Klaasen. For a long time, AB de Villiers was the gold standard. He averaged 41.8 at a strike rate of 137 with a boundary percentage of 52. Those figures pale in comparison to Klaasen’s, who averages 48.7, strikes at 180, and has a boundary percentage of 66. Klaasen also has a better dot ball percentage: 23.6 compared to de Villiers’ 27.8.
In the IPL, Klaasen has been colossal. South Africa’s gold standard, AB de Villiers, averaged 36.1 in 131 innings at a strike rate of 131 against spin. De Villiers faced almost 19 deliveries for every 6 he struck. His best years against tweakers were 2015 and 2016. He scored 52.7 at 195 and 48.3 at 159.
Klaasen is of course young in his IPL career. He’s been part of the tournament for four years, but only became a regular in the playing XI last season, and has played 15 games so far. But what a breathtaking ride it has been. He hits a six every seven deliveries. His average of 105 at a strike rate of 183 accompanied by a dot ball percentage of 19.8 is outstanding. If we zoom out and compare him to everyone else, Klaasen has the second-most runs against spin in the IPL since 2023.
Most runs against spin in the IPL since 2023
| Player | Runs | AVE. | SR. |
| Shubman Gill | 398 | 56.86 | 157.94 |
| Heinrich Klaasen | 297 | 148.5 | 192.86 |
| Devon Conway | 290 | 58 | 136.79 |
| Faf du Plessis | 286 | 57.20 | 125.44 |
| Virat Kohli | 270 | 54 | 112.97 |
| Rituraj Gaikwad | 264 | 33 | 160 |
| Sanju Samson | 248 | 49.6 | 160 |
| Suryakumar Yadav | 239 | 59.75 | 147.53 |
| Shivam Dube | 230 | 46 | 179.69 |
| Yashasvi Jaiswal | 210 | 210 | 153.28 |
South African batters with 1000 runs or more against spin in T20 cricket since 2007
| Player | AVE. | SR |
| AB de Villiers | 39.91 | 137.42 |
| Faf du Plessis | 35.93 | 122.20 |
| David Miller | 33.67 | 129.92 |
| Rilee Rossouw | 32.47 | 128.16 |
| Quinton de Kock | 26.27 | 127.50 |
| JP Duminy | 59.30 | 120.71 |
| Cameron Delport | 23.71 | 132.15 |
| Jacques Kallis | 29.45 | 103.42 |
| Heinrich Klaasen | 48.67 | 180.25 |
Klaasen learned to play spin in the bush, literally. In the year 2001, a few months after Etienne Birkenstock decided to turn his piece of land close to the Roodeplaat Dam into a cricketing nursery, he was visited by Klaasen’s mother. She wanted to know if Birkenstock could take on her son as one of his students. At the time, Willowick Academy had more grass growing than it did future stars.
Willowick was a dust bowl. There was barely any grass on the field or any of the pitches. Birkenstock was bootstrapping with limited resources. It was less spiffy-and-prestigious centre, more rough-and-ready academy. There were no structures or support staff.
Birkenstock invited his few students to learn how to prepare pitches. He felt that understanding the nature of batting surfaces would help his students as they developed their game. Klaasen was one of the few who embraced the opportunity. The youngster spent every Wednesday afternoon attending to that task, and other days of the week helping out with other chores when he was not training. Willowick Academy was his home away from home.
“Heinrich soaked up everything I told him like a sponge. He often came to help with the rolling of the eight pitches at Willowick and never shied away from hard work on and off the field,” says Birkenstock.
Like any youngster, Klaasen loved batting and would have preferred to roll out batting surfaces, but two of his best friends were tweakers and prevailed on him to curate turning wickets. As a result, Klaasen spent a significant portion of his formative years learning how to navigate spinners.
The turning ball is kryptonite for South African batters. They massacre pace and collapse at the sight of a tweaker warming up to bowl. Despite putting him in an elite group of cricketers, Klaasen’s ability against spin did not ensure a rise through the ranks as meteoric as his strike rate.
After matriculating, he joined Tuks, the University of Pretoria’s cricket team, while studying Human Movement Science and Sports Management. The institute is one of the best finishing schools in the sport in South Africa. It is a feeder for Northerns Cricket, the Titans’ semi-pro team. During his time there, Klaasen was part of Namibian coach Pierre du Bruyn’s all-conquering team that won a few Varsity trophies and club championships.
Despite an impeccable record at Tuks and his match-winning performances for Northerns, at 23, Klaasen was on an amateur contract with the Titans and sharing a flat with Aiden Markram. Two years later, he was seriously considering walking away from cricket. At 25, it didn’t look like his career was moving forward. Klaasen only persevered because Rob Walter, South Africa’s current white ball coach, asked for one more year from him.
Walter used Klaasen as his preferred wicket-keeper in List A and T20s, only affording him two innings in first-class cricket. That season, Klaasen averaged 40 in 20-over cricket and 48 in the 50-over format. It was enough to secure him a full contract in 2017. In early 2018, Klaasen was hammering India’s vaunted spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal as he helped South Africa secure an improbable victory at the Wanderers.
In that match, he scored 36 runs off 22 balls from Kuldeep and Chahal for a strike rate of 164. Between 2018 and 2019, Klaasen was cruising in third gear against spin, averaging 28.6 at 146.
Between his commitments to South Africa and contracting COVID-19, Klaasen did not feature on the franchise circuit in 2020 and 2021. When he re-emerged in 2022, he was a different cricketer, he had shifted into fifth gear and hasn’t slowed down, averaging 61 at a strike rate of 193.4 against spin. No other batter has been this good. Compared to the top 15 run-getters, you have to combine two players to recreate the impact Klaasen has had – Andre Fletcher and Glenn Maxwell.
In the IPL, no batter coming in at number 4, 5 or 6 has scored as many runs or boasts a better strike rate against spin as Klaasen since 2023. His average of 146.5 at 195 is incomparable.
Of course, Klaasen doesn’t just destroy spinners, he also decimates pacers. Since 2022, he has struck 57 sixes and 78 fours for an average of 40.4 at a strike rate of 173 against seamers in franchise cricket.
The IPL has the world’s best cricketers in the world batting in the middle order, but none have been as prolific as Klaasen since 2023. He has the most runs, the best average (54.7) and the highest strike rate (183) when compared to the top 10 run-getters in the number 4, 5 and 6 positions.
The man who learned how to bat against spin by doctoring pitches and almost left cricket to pursue a career in the corporate world, is among the most elite of an already exclusive club. He’s the dream every T20 side craves – a middle-order finisher who scores at breakneck speeds and is yet difficult to get out. Who can smash spin and plunder pace. This is Heinrich Klaasen’s world, and we’re just living in it.
ENDS
