Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen has brushed off concerns about his team’s overreliance on their explosive opening pair, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, following their crushing five-wicket loss to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad during their IPL 2025 clash on March 27.
Head and Abhishek have been a revelation for Sunrisers Hyderabad ever since they joined forces at the top. Their successful opening partnership was one of the main reasons behind SRH reaching the final last season. While there are other capable batters in the lineup, Head and Abhishek often steal the spotlight. After a depleted LSG defeated SRH, where the Orange Army couldn’t even score 200, a perception has emerged that last year’s runners-up are overly reliant on their openers.
“Not at all. If we look at our batting lineup, we are destructive till batter No. 8. We don’t need Travis and Abhishek to come off every time,” Klaasen said after the match. “We’re good enough to score without them as well. They put teams under pressure when they come off and make our jobs easier. You will never have a season where both of them score more than 1,000 runs. It’s the way we play — a bit on the riskier side. But no, we have big enough players to know that we need to do it by ourselves as well.”
Klaasen is regarded as one of the most destructive batters in the T20 circuit. Alongside Head, Abhishek, and Ishan Kishan, he forms one of the most dangerous batting lineups in the world.