India's batting great Sachin Tendulkar is in awe of Sunrisers Hyderabad's star batter's Heinrich Klaasen's blistering century against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Thursday (May 18).
Tendulkar termed Klaasen's ‘Klaas-ic’ century as one of the best he has ever seen in the recent past.
Klaasen hammered a splendid 104 off 51 to bring his maiden IPL century which was studded with eight fours and six maximums with a stunning strike rate of 203.92. Notably, Klaasen belted the second-fastest century for SRH after David Warner's 43-ball ton back in 2017.
Fastest centuries for SRH in the IPL
David Warner - 43 vs KKR (2017)
Heinrich Klaasen - 49 vs RCB (2023)
Johnny Bairstow - 52 vs RCB (2019)
David Warner - 54 vs RCB (2019)
Sachin lavishes immense praise on Klaasen's ton
Tendulkar took to twitter and lauded star South African's display of traditional batting.
“IPL is a mix of creative and traditional batting. Today has been a Klaas-ic display of traditional batting. Klaasen’s footwork has been simple and uncomplicated, one of the best I’ve seen in the recent past. Treat to watch!,” Tendulkar tweeted.
This was Klaasen’s second T20 hundred and his highest IPL score. His century also marked seventh ton of IPL 2023. The 31-year-old, along with Harry Brook, propelled SRH post a competitive total of 186/5.
Klaasen completed his century after banging a six off Harshal Patel's ball in the nineteenth over. Right after cracking his maiden century pulled off a wild celebration in which he was seen all pumped up as he shook his body to express his pent up emotions and later received a warm hug from his teammate Harry Brook.
Meanwhile, right after his blistering knock, Heinrich said,"Pretty special feeling. Little bit slower than the previous wickets. Little bit stoppiness from spinners. Trying to keep it as simple as possible (his method). Sometimes I search for flow with my hands, and the movement up and down causes inconsistency. So tried to keep hands as still as possible. Would love to say we're above par. They've got a fantastic batting unit. If we get couple of wickets early it should be enough."
Klaasen made his IPL debut in 2018 and played just four matches and finished the season with a mere 57 runs. In 2019, he played three matches but four years later, Klaasen completely turned around his IPL fortunes; he has scored over 350 runs this year and importantly, his runs have come at a great strike-rate. Klaasen is the fifth South African batter to score an IPL hundred after Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and David Miller. In this list, Amla, de Villiers and de Kock have more than one hundred.
However, Klaasen's century was dampened by Virat Kohli's sixth IPL ton as SRH lost the match by eight wickets.
Earlier, Faf Du Plessis won the toss and invited SRH to bat first.
“We are gonna have a bowl. The last two nights we have had some dew. Good surface but touch on the slower side. Same team as last game. Hasaranga has a niggle. Bracewell strengthens our batting. We have to start afresh. The game of cricket has a funny way of biting you. You have to have the humility of looking at a fresh game,” RCB skipper Du Plessis said after the toss.
“We would have looked to bat. Not too disappointed. Couple of changes. Brook comes in. Tyagi comes in as well. Umran is an x-factor player. Lot of pride to play for. We haven't lived up to the ability. We should try to showcase that at the world stage in the last two games,” SRH captain Aiden Markram after the toss.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (Playing XI): Virat Kohli, Faf du Plessis(c), Glenn Maxwell, Mahipal Lomror, Anuj Rawat(w), Shahbaz Ahmed, Michael Bracewell, Wayne Parnell, Harshal Patel, Karn Sharma, Mohammed Siraj.
Royal Challengers Bangalore Subs: Dinesh Karthik, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Himanshu Sharma, Suyash Prabhudessai, Kedar Jadhav
Sunrisers Hyderabad (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram(c), Heinrich Klaasen(w), Harry Brook, Glenn Phillips, Abdul Samad, Kartik Tyagi, Mayank Dagar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Nitish Reddy.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Subs: Mayank Markande, T Natarajan, Vivrant Sharma, Sanvir Singh, Akeal Hosein.
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