Heinrich Klaasen  can be exactly the X-factor that South Africa need at the World Cup, writes Katya Witney. This article first appeared in issue 71 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, a World Cup special.

No one in the world is hitting it as well as Heinrich Klaasen. From only playing two matches in the T20 World Cup nine months ago, to a blazing purple patch of centuries, sixes and more sixes – it’s a modus operandi that makes South Africa World Cup dark horses.

You can trace Klaasen’s explosion through the myriad franchise T20 competitions this year. He served up the goods for his home fans in the first edition of the SA20, mullering a hundred off 43 balls – brought up with a straight six. The IPL came next on the capitalist calendar march, where Klaasen smoked another century, with a strike rate near the 200 mark.

Those assaults offered the clearest evidence of Klaasen’s dominance against spin, prompting AB de Villiers to declare him one of the best players of spin he’d ever seen. It’s simple, no fuss hitting: drop it a yard too short and watch it disappear over mid-wicket. Drop it in the slot and watch it crash into the sightscreen.

Two months after the IPL, Klaasen once again reached three figures – the first time for anyone in Major League Cricket. In his three franchise centuries this year, Klaasen has faced a combined 139 balls for a strike rate of 228. In The Hundred for Oval Invincibles, 17 of the first 106 balls he faced were monstered for six, roughly a maximum for every six balls he faced. After a particularly brutal display against London Spirit, he said: “I can do it around the world. All the hard work I’ve put in over the last few years, it seems to work for all conditions.”

That South Africa have someone of Klaasen’s ability and power breathes life into a World Cup campaign that might otherwise be tinged with the effects of their ever-worsening situation. It’s been a depressing 12 months to witness South Africa’s retreat from international cricket’s top table. Last year they were beaten by the Netherlands and knocked out of the T20 World Cup in the group stages before a soul-crushing Test tour of Australia, followed by two hollow wins against the West Indies in front of sparse crowds in the same stadiums that punters had packed out to watch IPL-owned franchises less than a month before.

Next year, those stadiums will be full for the same purpose again, while a B-tier Proteas side will face New Zealand in a Test series away from the spotlight on the other side of the world. In an otherwise bleak landscape, figures like Klaasen are more important than ever.

South African cricket has been built on some of the greatest entertainers to play the game. From Allan Donald to AB, those who’ve done it faster and bigger have captured imaginations and energised cricket in the post-Apartheid era. Klaasen is the one grabbing the headlines currently, but he’s not alone in South Africa’s World Cup squad.

Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Lungi Ngidi could be the only fast-bowling attack able to hold a candle to Pakistan’s devastating pace arsenal. David Miller matches Klaasen in brute strength, while this will be Quinton de Kock’s last ODI hurrah, going in first with Temba Bavuma.

Comfort for South Africa doesn’t just come from who they have now, but also that plenty are coming through behind. This is a World Cup too soon for Dewald Brevis, the Gen Z understudy to South Africa’s millennial superstars, but 22-year-old fast bowler Gerald Coetzee has been fast-tracked after an impressive nine months on the franchise circuit.

With ODI and T20 cricket morphing into an interchangeable free-for-all, the youngsters making their names and fortunes in franchise competitions will become the bedrock of their 50-over side. South Africa’s problems are numerous. But getting bogged down in everything that’s so broken obscures the challenge of the here and now. It is too easily forgotten that, for all their tribulations, there is quality and pedigree throughout their squad.

This article first appeared in issue 71 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, a World Cup special.

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