Nice to give back something, Klaasen

“We had a bad start and middle, we fought to turn it around in the last three games. Nice to give something back to them. There was individual pride as well. I didn’t go on in a few games, did so tonight,” Klaasen said

HYDERABAD: It’s nice to give something back to the franchise which spends a lot of money on this, said Heinrich Klaasen, who hit a brilliant century to fashion Sunrisers Hyderabad’s emphatic win against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday night.

“We had a bad start and middle, we fought to turn it around in the last three games. Nice to give something back to them. There was individual pride as well. I didn’t go on in a few games, did so tonight,” Klaasen said.

“Plan was to go straight on this ground. I got my trajectory better, didn’t take on too many fielders. Pleased with that. I worked a lot on judging length, it’s getting me out a couple of times, so I’ve had to work on it in the nets a lot,” he said.

“After the power play is when I’d ideally go, but I get paid to do well whenever I go in,” Klaasen said.

For his part, SRH captain Pat Cummins said it was an amazing finish as a lot of things clicked in the last few games.

“Amazing batting. We have the calibre, but we couldn’t play any worse in some parts. Have the team to make the finals most times. It just didn’t work out this year,” Cummins said.

“We’re gonna get wickets like this where we can max out, but others where we need to graft to 170 which we didn’t get right. Feel like quite a few guys got opportunities. Really happy with the squad despite some injuries and players going out. Feels like we used 20 players,” he said.

And, one of the finds of the season for SRH, 22-year-old left-arm spinner Harsh Dubey, who picked a three-wicket haul, said he stuck to his strength, tried to turn the ball as much as possible and used the angles and fields to the left-handers.

“There have been a few coaches and inputs from Ashwin and I’ve tried to incorporate my learnings. (Coming on the back of a good Ranji season) I wasn’t focusing on my past performances but rather to do well with the white ball,” he said.