Inspired Klaasen out for taste of Boks' success in Australia semi-final

World Cup semi-finals are supposedly nervous affairs but a day before South Africa's encounter with Australia at the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata, Heinrich Klaasen, their middle-order powerhouse, was happily discussing his team's underwear.

- Ali Martin

It is a fair old tangent, prompted by the Springboks side that defended the men's Rugby World Cup last month with victory over the All Blacks in Paris. Klaasen played plenty of cricket against their feisty scrum-half Faf de Klerk back in the day, leading to a cheeky question of whether he, like De Klerk, owns a pair of South African flag budgie smugglers.

"Haha, no, I'm not that type of guy," said Klaasen, whose personal campaign to date included that brutal 109 against England in Mumbai. "But some of the guys do; there's definitely a couple of pairs floating around the dressing room. I've spoken to [the Springboks captain] Siya Kolisi during this trip and Faf. He and I go back a long way. Our schools [in Pretoria] were big rivals. Faf played for Waterkloof, I was at Menlopark, and he was a keeper-batter like me. It was pretty fierce competition; a lot of verbal abuse going around.

"But, yeah, we have taken a lot of inspiration from the rugby boys these past few weeks, watching their games together as a squad even though they started late here. Now we want a little bit of that success."