South Africa's Marco Jansen has all the right ingredients to become an all-round great.
Credit: PTI Photo
Centurion: It was the third day of the opening Test at the SuperSport Park in Centurion, and Makhaya Ntini was in high spirits. He literally danced through the corridors which led to the commentary box, knowing well that South Africa were on the cusp of another Test victory.
“Not bad for a side that doesn’t play as much cricket, huh,” he said before sprinting to his stint behind the microphone.
When he was done, India were all but done. He walked out, smiling.
What do you think was that did the trick?
“Jansen, man,” he offered. “Rabada was as good as always, but Jansen took two big wickets, and both the batsmen were bowled. It was brilliant. That’s that Jansen effect.”
As Ntini, one of South Africa’s greatest pace proponents, shook his leg and exited the mini-conversation, Marco Jansen’s role was still a mystery.
He doesn’t inspire fear like Rabada does and he doesn’t have Nandre Burger’s pace or angular strength. But, Jansen’s 2.06-metre frame has picked up 48 wickets in 12 Tests at a strike rate of 39.8 and an average of 22.35.
His economy of 3.36 may appear on the high side, but that’s because he seems disarming enough to take on. They might get away with it for a while but Jansen doesn’t relent.
His lanky, often slouching, frame and his distorted face don’t show this fortitude he possesses, but time spent understanding his body language reveals that he is about as hard-nosed as they come. A throwback to that grumpy South African cricketer of yore, an attitude which we seldom see these days.
He walks up to batters’ grilles as often as he bowls it there. It’s refreshing to see that kind of aggression in a day and age when personalities are generally friendly in the post-IPL era.
The same can be said of his bowling. It isn’t pretty. In fact, it looks like he barely puts in any effort, but the speed gun says he’s quick, and his height allows the ball to rear precariously. Better yet, Jansen is about as consistent as they come. He hits the deck with an unwavering consistency which would make Rabada proud.
Yes, Rabada is the poster child of the South African pace attack at the moment, and rightly so, but to ignore Jansen can prove dangerous.
Take the opening Test for instance. Jansen finished with one wicket in the opening innings and conceded 52 runs from 16 overs. He was not as efficient as he was capable of being.
As if to mollify this, he belted an unbeaten 84 from 147 deliveries with the bat. Oh, yeah, Jansen is more than decent with the bat. That, in fact, is one of the reasons why teams in the Indian Premier League love having him around.
Back to his bowling, Jansen picked up three wickets for 36 runs from 7.1 overs in the second innings. The wickets included Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer.
Let’s ignore the Kohli scalp for a moment because the game was done by the time the former Indian skipper got out, but the wickets of Gill and Shreyas within 20 runs of each other was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Coincidentally, on nearly the same day as this in 2021, Jansen had picked up four wickets in the second innings against the same opposition. It was his debut Test, and he had become the first player born in the 2000s to be capped for the national side.
It’s ironic too because Jansen only shot to the limelight after the likes of Virat Kohli were impressed with the-then 17-year-old when he bowled to them at the ‘nets’ during the 2018 tour.
It might not seem it, but Jansen is all of 23-years-old so he has quite some time to establish himself as the leader in the years to come.