Video: Klaasen's Lightening Quick Stumping Would Even Make Dhoni Proud

Sunrisers Hyderabad etched out a narrow 2-run victory against Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 campaign on Tuesday. While SRH's traditional stars like Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram and Heinrich Klaasen didn't do much with the bat, it was the youngster Nitish Kumar Reddy who shone with the bat. In SRH's 2-run win, however, there also remains a big contribution from Klaasen who produced a stunning stumping effort to sent PBKS skipper Shikhar Dhawan packing. 

Klaasen's lightening-quick stumping didn't even give Dhawan the time to think about making a comeback to the crease, with the bails being dislodged well before the southpaw realised what happened. Here's the video:

It's already been more than 12 hours, but Heinrich Klaasen's masterclass against a 140kmph delivery of Bhuvi still bedazzles.

- A stumping of a fast bowler is simply crazy! pic.twitter.com/hNPcS7zW8d — Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) April 10, 2024

Fans on social media started to draw MS Dhoni comparison after witnessing the South African star's stunning act.

What made the stumping brilliant was the fact that Bhuvneshwar Kumar had delivered the ball at a speed of 140kmph. At that speed, it was incredibly tough for Klaasen to collect the ball while standing up at the stumps and dislodge the bails.

Speaking at the post-match presentation, SRH skiper Cummins held special praise for Nitish who emerged as the match-winner for the franchise. He said: "He was awesome, fantastic debut last week. Straight to the top for the order, fantastic in the field, bowled three overs too. To get us to 180 off his bat, it was amazing."

Cummins said it was a great game of cricket and despite PBKS bowling well in the start, SRH did well to reach 182 and defend it. He also pointed out that the 'Impact Player' rule deepens the batting.

"If you get 150-160, you are going to lose nine out of ten games anyway. We knew the new ball was going to be a key time. We were pretty happy (with our score). We saw what happened with the new ball for them, so thought if me and Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar) could start off with a wicket of wickets, it would be good. We have plenty of left-armers and right-armers, so just trying to give the bowlers the best chance of success," he said, giving a further insight into the team's performance and bowling tactics.

Earlier in the evening, PBKS opted to bowl first after winning the toss. Stifling the visitors with a disciplined bowling effort, they reduced the Sunrisers to 100/5 in 13.1 overs at one point. A 50-run partnership between Nitish Reddy (64 in 37 balls, with four boundaries and five sixes) and Abdul Samad (25 in 12 balls, with five fours) helped SRH push the score to 182/9 in 20 overs.

Arshdeep Singh (4/29) was the pick of the bowlers. Harshal Patel (2/30) and Sam Curran (2/41) were also great with the ball. Kagiso Rabada took a wicket for PBKS.

In the run-chase of 183, PBKS lost wickets frequently and were reduced to 114/6 in 15.3 overs. A remarkable fightback from Shashank Singh (46* in 25 balls, with six fours and a six) and Ashutosh Sharma (33* in 15 balls, with three fours and two sixes) almost sealed a win for Punjab, but they fell short by two runs.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/32) was the pick of the bowlers for SRH. Skipper Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkat, T Natrajan, Nitish Reddy took a wicket each for SRH. Nitish took home the 'Player of the Match' award.

SRH has climbed up to fifth place with three wins and two losses, giving them six points. PBKS is in sixth place, having won two and lost three matches, giving them four points.

With ANI inputs