The South African team that will tour India very soon will not look as daunting as the team that came here and defeated the Men in Blue both in the ODI and T20I series. There will be two big names from the class of 2015 that will be missing in the current Proteas squad – AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn.
While Steyn's absence would be somewhat filled up by the presence of other top bowlers like Rabada (he was the main nemesis of India with the ball on that tour), the absence of AB leaves a massive hole that won't be easily filled.
But if Virat Kohli and his men expect an easier contest, they may be mistaken. Because the Test team arriving on the Indian shores would still have some extremely talented players, including young ones. There is one man in particular who India need to watch out for.
He is Heinrich Klaasen – the wicket-keeper batsman who was chiefly responsible for the only victory that the Proteas registered in their home ODI series against India in the 'Pink match' of 2018. More recently, he was part of the South Africa A team in their 5-match ODI series against India A.
While the Proteas' second-string team couldn't succeed very much and lost the series 4-1, Klaasen was one of the players who impressed everyone with his efforts. While he didn't have a big score to his name, the knocks he played were still good to watch for the clean stroke-making it contained.
Klaasen may not yet have the big-scoring prowess that someone like Reeza Hendricks showed but he certainly possesses the ability to strike the ball sweetly. The way he sets up at the crease to face deliveries puts him in an ideal position to both target the leg side and off-side boundary.
Now, it won't be easy for him to have the kind of success he wants against India's main team. When a bowler like Jasprit Bumrah, with his deadly accurate yorkers, and the spinners are operating in helpful conditions, things would be much tougher.
But in the upcoming Test series, for which, he wasn't picked initially but came in when the reserve keeper Rudi Second got injured, he could emerge as the one dark horse who could trouble India. In the long-run, he may also be the man to provide strength to the South African middle order. But for that, he will first have to break his way into the South African team. That won't be easy.
