After briefly considering the possibility, South Africa’s aggressive batter Heinrich Klaasen has formally ruled out making a comeback abroad and confirmed his retirement to focus on family time.
After being left out of South Africa’s central contracts, 34-year-old Klaasen resigned from all international cricket in June of last year to concentrate on playing in Twenty20 leagues.
Despite having “FOMO” (fear of missing out) during the 2026 T20 World Cup, the Proteas batsman, who is renowned for his aggressive batting style, has since declared he will not be coming back.
Klaasen discussed his future in the game with his Sunrisers Hyderabad teammate Nitish Kumar Reddy in a video that the IPL shared on social media.
“It was a thought for about two weeks. And then we decided against it. Obviously, my family plays a big role in it. I have missed my friends when they did extremely well in the World Cup. But I had a little bit more FOMO, and I wanted to come back. I spoke to Aiden (Markram), actually. He said if he is capped, then I will definitely come back. But after the World Cup, I realised it is not going to happen. So, I am not coming back,” PTI quoted Klaasen as saying.
Earlier in 2024, Klaasen announced his retirement from Test cricket. His last international cricket match was in the 2025 Champions Trophy, where New Zealand defeated South Africa by 50 runs in the semifinal.
In their IPL 2026 encounter in Kolkata on Thursday, Sunrisers Hyderabad upset Kolkata Knight Riders by 65 runs thanks to a quick fifty from Klaasen.
Klaasen (52) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (39) provided the late push as SRH scored 226/8 after Travis Head (46) and Abhishek Sharma (48) shared an opening stand of 82 runs off 34 balls to set the stage. Angkrish Raghuvanshi led the way with a 29-ball 52 but KKR collapsed for 161 in 16 overs.
