Klassen owes his ton to the SRH fans as last season’s finalists end season on a high after crushing victory against KKR.
Klassen owes his ton to the franchise and his motivation step up to the plate’.
Heinrich Klaasen scored an undefeated 39-ball 105 against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Sunday night, driven by a great deal of “individualistic pride,” a desire to perform for his family and franchise, and a desire to conclude Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) disastrous IPL 2025 on a high note.
Klaasen led SRH to a commanding 278 for 3 with seven fours and nine sixes in the joint-third-fastest century in IPL history. KKR was bowled out for 168 in 18.4 overs as a response.
“I want to thank my family, and the franchise,” Klaasen said after his innings. “They [SRH] spend a lot of time and effort and a lot of money into this brand of cricket and we owe it to them to step up to the plate and dish out good performances.
“The franchise puts a lot of money into this. They’ve been around for 13, 14 years. And for us, we had a bad start to middle of the competition and it just didn’t look well on the field. For us to turn it around… and we’ve played brilliant cricket over the last three and a half games. And to just give back to them as well.”
Despite having numerous starts in the 14 innings and striking at 172.69 in the IPL 2025, Klaasen has only achieved a hundred and fifty runs. With 487 runs at the end of the season, he was still SRH’s top scorer. Did he approach the situation differently on Sunday night?
“Not trying to hit every ball for six,” Klaasen said. “I think that’s where I went wrong this season. Hitting the hard length. [Sunil] Narine had a spell there that it was quite difficult to get away and I had to improvise a little bit. So, sticking to your hard length, mix it up and just play with his length is quite important.
“It’s been a long season of disappointment and sometimes against your processes. Luckily, I stuck to it and finally I’ve got a little bit of reward tonight.”