Surprised India didn’t bowl Bhuvi at death: Klaasen

Klaasen, the unlikely hero for South Africa on Saturday night, said he was surprised that India didn’t bowl pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah towards the end even as the spinners were getting clobbered.

“I was very surprised. David (Miller) and I thought they would have kept them at the back-end for two overs each. But I think how this series went that led them to bowling their spinners for the remaining of the overs, but I was very surprised about it,” he said.

The wicketkeeper-batsman, who has replaced injured Quinton de Kock, played a blinder, 47 off 27 balls, using audacious strokes to disturb the line of the spinners. While there were reverse sweeps, he went almost to the sixth or seventh stump outside off and pulled a wide delivery from Yuzvendra Chahal to square leg for four.

“That’s where the gaps were… that was my only boundary option. He bowled quite wide and got a lot of turn and bounce, that was my gutsy shot at that moment and I pulled it off,” said Klaasen, who added that the sweeps and reverse sweeps come naturally to him.

“It comes naturally to me, but I work hard on it. Three years ago we went to Sri Lanka on a National Academy trip. So there, we learned all types of sweeps. Since then, I’ve brought it back into my game and it works, it takes off a lot of pressure. Especially against good spinners, it’s difficult to hit them down the ground if you don’t use your feet well. So that just changed up their lengths and it suits me a little bit better.”

The 26-year-old said that while Chahal hadn’t worried SA much, it was Kuldeep Yadav’s bowling that was a bit of a bother. However, they worked on it.

“The problem at beginning of the series was that we didn’t pick the Chinaman. The leggie was, no one really struggled to pick him but he seemed to pick up a lot of wickets. We struggled to pick the Chinaman’s variations and we did a lot of homework on him over the last 2-3 days and that seemed to work today.”

Both Klaasen and David Miller snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They added 72 in just under seven overs after the Proteas had lost their star player AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla, who was looking good.

“Between myself and David, we can let that run-rate go up till about probably 12-13, especially at the Wanderers where the ball tends to fly quite a bit. It was a momentum changer, getting that free hit on David’s wicket.

Three years ago we went to Sri Lanka on a National Academy trip. We learned all types of sweeps. I’ve brought it back into my game and it works.

HEINRICH KLAASEN, On his batting