SA vs IND: Heinrich Klaasen unhappy with South Africa's current schedule, says 'there's a lot of frustration'

South Africa wicketkeeper-batter Heinrich Klaasen has taken a dig at the national board and slammed the scheduling of the ongoing T20I series against India on Thursday (Nov 14). The Proteas are playing India in a four-match T20I series, which was not part of the Future Tour Programs (FTP) of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The series comes days before India is also scheduled to play Australia in the Test series in another part of the world while the Men in Blue have two different squads.

Klaasen slams cricket scheduling

"I'm just saying, people need to understand that tight schedule is what we go through. It's in the heat of the moment. There are a billion people that are going to be on your head if you fail. There's a lot of frustration and I was looking especially in the way that I struck the ball tonight. It's nice to see that he's finding some rhythm in his game, and hopefully he will kick on,” Klaasen said after the third T20I against India.

While South Africa is coping with the added series with its current crop of players, India has roughly 50-60 players playing for the national team in various senior and junior squads. Pointing out the finger on the same, Klaasen reckons India has the resources to adjust to the added scheduling of the series, while that is not the case for South Africa.

As things stand, India has a different T20I squad in South Africa while the senior Test squad is preparing for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. To add more players to the contingent, the India A squad also has players who are not part of either squad but are in Australia for the warm-up matches.

On the other hand, last season South African players had to pull out of the senior team which was supposed to play in New Zealand as the SA20 was on the calendar.