Knight: 'Klaasen is batting far too low. Six overs or a tick over, get him out there'

That Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) haven't been the team many people expected them to be in IPL 2025 is common knowledge. Now, with the wham-bam top three not quite coming off, is there logic in pushing Heinrich Klaasen higher than the No. 5 or 6 he has usually batted at (except in one game, when he went in one down)? After all, he has been their only consistent batter, and their highest run-getter at this stage of the tournament.

"Those of us who've seen him play over the years and those who are watching [know] that's what he is capable of and more," Nick Knight said on ESPNcricinfo's Time Out show. "He just needs an opportunity to do it more often. I think he is batting far too low in that side. Six overs [or] a tick over, get him out there.

On Wednesday night, during SRH's sixth loss of the season in their eighth game, against Mumbai Indians (MI) at home, Klaasen walked out at No. 5 with SRH 13 for 3 in the fourth over. That became 35 for 5 by the ninth. "It was game over [by then]," Knight said, but Klaasen, with Impact Player Abhinav Manohar for company, gave the innings a semblance of respectability. The 99-run stand with Manohar ended when Klaasen fell off the last ball of the 19th over for a 44-ball 71.

"It's difficult to do [assess the par score and play accordingly] when you're 24 for 4 after the powerplay," SRH head coach Daniel Vettori said at the press conference. "[But] Klaasen and Abhinav had a wonderful partnership and took some responsibility to try to get a score, but it wasn't enough."

The 71 took Klaasen up to No. 11 on the Orange Cap table for the season, with 281 runs at an average of 40.14 and a strike rate of 159.65. Klaasen hasn't had a real failure yet, with 21 not out his lowest score. He has had two scores in the 20s, four scores in the 30s, and the 71. For an under-performing batting unit, that's remarkable.

Varun Aaron, speaking on the same show, agreed with Knight and marvelled at how well Klaasen stuck to the basics while batting.

"Just how still he is [at the crease], he just doesn't give the bowler anything before the bowler can bowl," Aaron said. "Just still, hands through the ball, and it almost looks like he isn't trying to overhit anything."

Vettori acknowledged that the batters haven't been able to adapt to the changing conditions well this year, but stressed that the style of play - with Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan, primarily, going hard to "maximise" the powerplay - wouldn't change.

"They can't second-guess themselves now," Varun Aaron, Knight's co-panellist, said. "When we talk about Bazball, or the style of cricket SRH is playing, it's given them results last year. They came back last year after being eighth and tenth the previous two years to play in the finals last year. So that has given them results. It's not worked out this year.

"But again, if you see last year, the guys who performed for them: Abhishek Sharma had a blitz out of nowhere, previous to that his record wasn't the best; Travis Head again didn't have the best record in the IPL; Pat Cummins, up until then, didn't have a great IPL ever. So a lot of the guys last year had their best IPLs. So coming back from your best IPL and trying to replicate that can never be easy.

"So people must be mindful of that. And obviously they have had their best IPL with a lot of players playing a certain way. They wanted to bring that same kind of pattern this year and it hasn't worked out. But they can't second-guess themselves at this point."