Kevin Pietersen urges international star to come out of retirement for World Cup

NEW DELHI: Heinrich Klaasen may have retired from international cricket, but his power-hitting continues to amaze many, including former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen. After Klaasen’s match-winning knock for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Mumbai Indians in IPL 2026, Pietersen urged him to consider a return to the South African side.

Chasing a daunting 243/5 - powered by Ryan Rickelton’s record unbeaten 123 - SRH got off to a flying start through Abhishek Sharma (45) and Travis Head (76). Klaasen then took centre stage, smashing an unbeaten 65 to guide SRH to a six-wicket win over the five-time champions.

After Rickelton’s knock - MI’s highest individual score and fastest IPL century - lifted the hosts to 243/5, SRH produced a collective batting effort to seal the chase with eight balls to spare. It was also the fourth-highest successful run chase in IPL history, on a flat surface that offered little assistance to bowlers. SRH chased down 244, finishing at 249/4 in 18.4 overs.

Klaasen’s blistering innings included seven fours and four sixes.

Klaasen had officially retired from international cricket on June 2 last year to focus on family time and franchise T20 leagues. Klaasen represented South Africa in 4 Tests, 60 ODIs and 58 T20Is between 2018 and 2025.

"South Africa have never won a cricket world cup! There should be a phone call this morning, from the South African cricket board, to Heinrich Klaasen, to ask him if he can rejoin international cricket and be a central figure in their campaign to try and win their first ever world cup which will be in South Africa next year," Pietersen wrote on social media.

Sunrisers Hyderabad are currently third on the points table with six wins from nine matches, having accumulated 12 points and a net run rate of +0.832.

After the win, Klaasen said: "No, not really (on his thoughts after the loss of three quick wickets). There was a big gap in the cow corner - so you have to take a risk a little bit earlier. The wicket was good. You're chasing 9 or 10 runs every over for about 10 overs and they've got a quality bowling line-up. So you had to take a chance just to see if you could create some momentum from the situation."

"(Asked about his inside out drives) The left shoulder's given me some issues over the last year, so I'm not strong over cow-corner anymore. And our lovely slinger has been feeding stuff over extra cover for me, so things are going nicely right now. No, not at all. Humble," he said.

"Tomorrow's a new day. I'm probably going home, hoping the baby isn't screaming, so daddy duty is up now. It's nice to contribute to the team. It's a great win for us and hopefully we can repeat it at home. Like I said earlier, if they're going at 15, 16, it's going to make your life a little bit easier (on the openers). So when I got in, I think we needed just under 10s chasing 250, so that's an incredible job from them.(On salil Arora) I told him he needed, I think it was 11 or 12 or 6 or something like that. He doesn't have to worry. And then he asked, "Can I hit?" And I said, "Yes, just hit it." I said, you just go for it. Just finish the game. It's incredible to see him do it on the big stage, but we see it every day at training. It's just incredible talent. So hopefully his career continues," he said.