All-rounder Marco Jansen is a vital cog in the Proteas team

2 Mar 2025

The South African cricketer provides the national team with much-needed balance, bridging the batters and the bowlers.

Marco Jansen is a special player. His availability to the national team means that the Proteas are one of the few teams in the Champions Trophy whose playing XI composition can consist of six high-quality batters and five genuine bowlers, well capable of bowling 10 overs each.

It’s a game plan South Africa used throughout the 2023 Cricket World Cup to excellent effect, but with the fast-bowling stocks severely depleted because Anrich Nortje and Gerald Coetzee are unavailable through injury, white-ball head coach Rob Walter has experimented by playing Wiaan Mulder as a second all-rounder in the side.

The all-rounders’ batting role is to come in at seven and eight and give the ball a big whack, while they have to be good enough to be frontline bowlers too, of course.

Jansen more than just creeps into the category of a frontline bowler. He is arguably the best new-ball bowler in the country, particularly with the white leather in the shorter formats.

The absence of the aforementioned pair of rip-roaring pacers has placed added responsibility on young Jansen and his bowling partner, Kagiso Rabada.

Despite the injuries South Africa faces, Jansen is the one player the team has no replacement for. He balances the batting line-up as the bridge between those who are paid big money to smack boundaries while constantly rotating the strike, and those with the reckless abandon to try to club the ball over the boundary at every opportunity, although admittedly with rare success.

Jansen is at his best with the wooden stick in hand when he’s trying to loft the ball over the boundary ropes, but he’s a lot better at it than those who come to the crease after him.

The big-hitting right-handed batter has the second-highest one-day international (ODI) batting strike rate in the squad (107.45), with only Heinrich Klaasen (117.44) ahead of him.

A league ahead

Among seam-bowling all-rounders globally, Jansen sits at the top of the table, flanked by India’s Hardik Pandya and Afghanistan’s Azmatullah Omarzai.

Although the subcontinent pair’s batting in the format is more developed, Jansen’s bowling blows both of them out of the water, not only for sheer impact with the ball, but also for the variety that he brings to an attack.

The left-arm swing bowler, who is 2m and a few centimetres tall, has become a nightmare for opening batters in recent times. He has always had the tools to bother batters with his raw pace, but his kryptonite was his control for extended periods. For every threatening delivery, an easy opportunity to score was offered up.

And Jansen has become a mature figure on the field, despite his young age. In 2024, Cricket South Africa, in collaboration with national team head coaches Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter, decided to put Jansen on a 12-week strength and conditioning programme.

He returned visibly stronger, refreshed and mentally prepared for the tasks ahead. He has become a beanpole with vines that have sprouted.

After the final of the T20 World Cup in June 2024, which South Africa lost by seven runs to India, the fast bowler didn’t play for the country again until the start of November.

He missed Test tours to West Indies and Bangladesh, as well as white-ball series against Ireland, West Indies and Afghanistan.

In his first international match back, he was South Africa’s most economical bowler in a T20I match against India.

In his first Test match back, Jansen recorded his first career 10-wicket haul, which included picking up seven wickets for 13 runs in 6.5 overs of carnage.

In the 50-over format, the gangly all-rounder has taken six wickets in the three matches he has played since the back end of last year.

Jansen’s absence from the national team opened the door for Mulder to have an extended run in the national side.

The pair of all-rounders are close friends off the field and have so far made a dangerous set of batters to have coming in at seven and eight.

A good start

Jansen’s form has extended into franchise cricket as well. He made the final of the SA20 with Sunrisers Eastern Cape at the start of February.

His SA20 captain, Aiden Markram, confessed that Jansen eats a triple-decker pizza (three pizzas on top of each other) and drinks a Coca-Cola before every match. It’s not the healthiest choice before an important match, but it’s clearly one that’s worked for him.

Jansen’s massive appetite extends to the cricket field as well, where his hunger for wickets brings out the best in him.

Despite consuming those calorie-dense pizzas, Jansen was the leading wicket taker in the competition with 19 scalps in 13 matches – five more than the next best. The lanky quick was handy with the willow too, finishing as his side’s fourth-highest run-getter, with 204 runs in 12 knocks.

Jansen was rightfully named the player of the tournament in season three, and last season he was the rising star of the tournament.

Despite receiving the award in 2024, Jansen’s star continues to rise. He is still only 24 years old and is improving year on year.

South Africa’s hopes of success in the Champions Trophy don’t lay solely on the shoulders of Jansen, as it’s a team sport. But big performances in crunch matches by the ever-improving beanpole will go a long way in setting the team up on their way to their first ICC trophy in 27 years. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

A league ahead

A good start