Klaasen wants more all-format cricket for South Africa to build more momentum and a competitive edge in the side.
Klaasen calls for more cricket for South Africa across formats.
Klaasen responded that they simply wish they had more games when asked how the squad will approach Friday’s fourth and final Twenty20 match against India, because they are no longer able to win the series and haven’t won a bilateral series in two years.
“That’s the nature of where we are as South African cricket. We don’t play five-match series any more,” he said after their 11-run defeat in Centurion. “How nice would it be if we win on Friday, and then we have another game on Sunday, going into it two-all?”
However, Klaasen was not questioned on the possibility that South Africa could lose 3-1, which would make any possible fifth game pointless. Rather, he was dissatisfied with South Africa’s lack of cross-format play.
“Our Test team is playing two-Test series, which is ridiculous in my eyes. It’s disappointing, and it doesn’t sit well with the players, because we want to play more cricket against these guys, and against the other countries as well, but we always find a way to just play two games or three games, and it’s annoying.”
Even though South Africa plays the shorter forms more frequently than they would like, Klaasen still feels strongly about them despite his retirement from Test cricket in January of this year. Only twice has South Africa participated in a five-match T20I series: once in June 2021 in the West Indies and once in 2022 against India. They held a four-match T20I series against Pakistan just before that.
Their ODI matches have been restricted to three matches since a Sri Lanka series in March 2019, which was part of the World Cup preparations for that year, and they haven’t played a three-match Test series since the summer of 2022–2023 in Australia, with the exception of a 50-over series of five games at home against Australia prior to the 2023 World Cup.
In 2024 so far, Klaasen has played 55 T20 matches (across domestic and international) in four tournaments, the T20 World Cup and the ongoing bilateral series. He has a batting strike rate of 164.32, his highest for any calendar year.