ICC World Cup | Heinrich Klassen one of the most fearsome ODI batters in world cricket

It may sound odd but arguably the best batter of spin bowling in limited overs’ cricket is a South African. It is not at all odd that he is equally indomitable against pace bowlers. No wonder then that Heinrich Klaasen is one of the most fearsome batters in world cricket, at least in 50-over-a-side format, at the moment.

It may sound odd but arguably the best batter of spin bowling in limited overs’ cricket is a South African. It is not at all odd that he is equally indomitable against pace bowlers.

No wonder then that Heinrich Klaasen is one of the most fearsome batters in world cricket, at least in 50-over-a-side format, at the moment.

Klaasen has continued his classy batting and silken touch in the Men’s ODI World Cup. His back-to-back knocks at the Wankhede Stadium, including Tuesday’s 49-ball 93, have underlined his prowess in the format.

Having joined Quinton de Kock at the crease towards the end of the 30th over, Klaasen knew that neither would face too much of spin nor was he in danger of running out steam on yet another hot and humid day, as he did three days ago.

Still, he made the most of the nine balls he got from the spinners, tonking 20 runs. But once Bangladesh employed an all-pace strategy and the pace trio misfired as much as their England counterparts, Klaasen was up to it. Before miscuing one in the last over, he had thumped 73 runs off his 40 balls.

As if taking aking Mustafizur Rahman to cleaners in the 47th over wasn’t good enough with a sequence of 6, 4, 6, 2 off the last four balls wasn’t enough, Klaasen was even more severe off Shoriful Islam - the other left-arm pacer - who replaced him for the next over from the same end.

The five balls he faced off Shoriful in the 49th over fetched him 18 runs, thus giving South Africa an outside chance of crossing the 400-run mark.