South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen Retires From Test Cricket After Dean Elgar

New Delhi: Days after South Africa’s Dean Elgar played his farewell Test match against Team India in Cape Town, heavy hitter Heinrich Klaasen has announced his retirement from red-ball cricket. However, Klaasen will continue to represent the Proteas team in white-ball cricket. The wicket-keeper batter has only played 4 matches in the white jersey in International cricket and he scored 104 runs in it with no half-century or century. His best score in the format is 35 runs.

Many former cricketers believe the rise in the T20 league across the globe has been a major factor in the deterioration of Test cricket. Legendary Protea batter AB de Villiers also raised the issue after the recently concluded IND vs SA series only had two Test matches.

Proteas are also facing a lot of backlash after they announced a weakened squad for the upcoming New Zealand series.

South Africa’s next Test assignment will be a two-match tour of New Zealand in February. Their leading players, though, will stay at home to play the second season of SA20, starting from January 10, as the league clashes with the Test tour of New Zealand.

The 14-member South Africa team for the New Zealand tour will be captained by opener Neil Brand, who is amongst the seven uncapped players in the team. The move brought immense criticism for South Africa in prioritising their franchise T20 league competition over a Test series for financial sustainability reasons.

De Villiers believes Test cricket is under pressure from T20s and admitted players and coaches would rather opt for franchise leagues than play the longer formats like Tests and ODIs.

“It (South Africa’s Test squad for New Zealand) has sent shockwaves around the cricketing world and has made it clear that Test cricket is under pressure, for that matter even ODI cricket, and the whole system is turning around T20 cricket.”

“The players, the board and coaches will turn towards where there is more money. You cannot blame them for thinking about their future with their family.”