In an IPL season where opening batters have thrown caution to the wind, and redefined powerplay batting in the process, Travis Head had been fairly low-key, with a number of starts but nothing more substantial than a 21-ball 46. Till Wednesday, when he slammed 76 in 30 balls against Mumbai Indians (MI) to finally come to the IPL 2026 party. A party Heinrich Klaasen was already one of the star turns at: despite being a No. 4 batter, Klaasen has been in the top three on the Orange Cap table for most parts of the tournament.
With Klaasen, the consistency has been remarkable. And while there have been a couple of occasions when he has tempered his approach, he has maintained a strike rate of 157.41 across nine innings, and across 414 runs, which have come at an average of 59.14.
“He’s been ultra consistent. The last game [against Rajasthan Royals (RR)] was the only game that he’s had a score under 30 and he got 29. So [he is] actually papering over a few cracks [in the line-up],” Mitchell McClenaghan said on ESPNcricinfo TimeOut. “He’s Mr Consistent and he’s looking exceptional. He’s going through the gears. He’s looking superb.”
What Klaasen has succeeded in doing almost without fail is handle the middle overs and take the innings into the end overs after Abhishek Sharma, in the main, and Ishan Kishan have done all the bashing early on.
“What I do like is that he’s allowing the Reddys [Nitish Kumar Reddy] and Aroras [Salil Arora] to come in with confidence. He’s controlling the innings. He’s navigating those periods of play with these younger guys and helping them through it,” McClenaghan said. “Everything just looks so calm and composed when he’s at the crease. No one’s found an answer to get him out early. That’s the critical thing.
“Tonight [against MI], you’ve got Kishan out early, he doesn’t contribute. You get Klaasen in straightaway, and you’re going a long way.”
One of things Klaasen did differently against MI was to take on AM Ghazanfar, something he has not always done against spinners in the middle overs. The 11th over of the innings, bowled by Ghazanfar, went for 16, with Klaasen hitting a four and a six, and Reddy chipping in with a four off the first ball. Ghazanfar then bowled the 16th over, and this time Klaasen hit him for two sixes, and Reddy added a four to take 19 runs off it. That’s 35 runs off two overs where Klaasen would have been expected to be cautious.
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MI vs SRH, IPL 2026 – Heinrich Klaasen is navigating innings with youngsters, says Mitch McClenaghan
Saba Karim says the SRH batter counterattacked at the right time
“It was great on the part of Klaasen to sense the moment and he felt that if he can seize this moment then we can easily win the game,” Saba Karim said. “So for him to counter-attack Ghazanfar in that over [the 11th] and collect 16 runs, that actually tilted the balance in the favour of SRH [Sunrisers Hyderabad]. With Nitish Reddy, the only work that he did was to rotate the strike and give more and more opportunities for Klaasen to go big and he played such a fabulous knock today. So very different from what we have seen so far from Klaasen. He actually wanted to finish the game early and he counter-attacked at the right time.”
Looking at the way the season has gone – SRH have six wins from nine games – Klaasen might have been expected to do well, though you do expect the law of averages to catch up with him. Which is what happened, in reverse, with Head.
“Although the bowlers know the areas where he’s very strong at, he gives himself some space trying to hit over the infielders on the off side, and he was able to do that today,” Karim said. “Unfortunately for him, before this, whenever he has tried to go big, he has to holed out to the infielders or even some boundary riders at the back. But today, I think he was more steady.
“He had a stronger base when he was trying to hit. Not for once I thought that he was trying to hit too hard and losing his shape. And I think that was the key to his success. Even on the on side, when he was trying to hit, he was able to pick the length early and then retain his shape. I think he has worked hard. I think maybe this is the only area where you can work hard if you’re going through such a bad form.”
