Marco Jansen: Proteas' Next Allrounder?
At 23, has Marco Jansen shown enough promise to be worth investing in as an allrounder?
The Proteas play five bowlers and six batters, and because the bowlers haven’t been of much help with the bat, the guys who have come in at number seven haven’t helped much. For a long time, the Proteas averaged around 15 runs at a strike in the mid-60s (64) from their number seven batter. Marco Jansen came in and gave those numbers a boost. The question is, can he boost them even more?
Lance Klusener arrived at Natal as a net bowler. Natal wanted someone who could deliver long spells in the nets and he was that guy. Klusener went above and beyond, he bowled long and challenging fast-medium spells. That’s what caught Denis Carlstein and the rest of the Natal management’s eye.
No one noticed his batting because there was nothing to notice. Klusener could hold a bat, was a useful part of the tail, he could add a double-digit score to the total every now and then, but there wasn’t much else beyond that. At Country Districts, the highest Klusener had ever batted was at number 10. No one could have predicted that Klusener would develop into a premier allrounder, ‘one of South Africa’s great modern allrounders’, as Neil Manthorp puts it.
Klusener would go on to bat anywhere from opening and number 10 for the Proteas. He scored unbeaten centuries as an opener and number three in ODI cricket. He batted in the top three in 25 innings. Klusener was most productive at numbers three, six and eight where he averaged 35, 41 and 58 in 25, 22 and 36 innings respectively.
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“Getting into the Natal team it was all about bowling, it was all about getting better, stronger and faster. Batting was on the back burner. But, once you get into the team, there was opportunity to bat in the nets, and access to specialised coaches from good coaches. The ability was always there, but the development came later,” says Klusener.
In Making Decisions, Ed Smith described Sam Curran as the swarm harmoniser because of his ability to improve the wider collective of the team. That’s why Smith picked him for England. Curran can bat anywhere between numbers five and eight and can act as the third or fourth seamer based on conditions. He makes things happen with bat and ball.
South Africa has been on the hunt for their own Curran-type of player for years. A country that swam in a sea of seam bowling allrounders in the 1990s and 2000s has endured a prolonged drought and hasn’t had one in years. At one time they had Hansie Cronje, Jacques Kallis, Shaun Pollock and Lance Klusener in the same side. Kallis was the last of the coterie to retire in 2014.
Since then, South Africa tried Chris Morris, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Andile Phehlukwayo and Wiaan Mulder as contributors with both bat and ball. It hasn’t really worked out. Pretorius, Phehlukwayo and Mulder’s ODI careers were largely around the same time, between 2017 and 2022. The inconsistency in selection might be one of the reasons why none of them really took off.
South Africa was impatient with Mulder. Mulder debuted for the Lions while he was still a High School student. Immediately, he was looked at as South Africa’s long-awaited allrounder. He debuted at 19 and played 10 ODI innings spread between October 2017 and September 2021. By the time he was 23, CSA had just given up on him. In truth, CSA should have held his hand longer, instead of expecting a work-experience kid to run the company on arrival.
Phehlukwayo was the next big thing. At 19, he was the Dolphins’ leading wicket-taker in the CSA T20 Challenge and played a couple of cameos with the bat. He showed promise for the Proteas with the bat between 2017 and 2021. His 23 runs from five balls against India in February 2018 was one of his few moments of brilliance. Then he flamed out.
Now, the Proteas have settled on Marco Jansen. Like Klusener, Jansen caught the world’s attention with his bowling. He made his debut for North West because Monty Jacobs saw him bowling. Niel Bredenkamp called him one night. Bredenkamp had a talented Grade 11 youngster in his team at Potch Dorp Cricket Club. The boy was wasted playing club cricket and deserved to play at a higher level.
Marco Jansen’s arrival at the North West nets brought a new era to the club. Suddenly batters started coming for net sessions with arm guards, chest guards and other protective gear. None were willing to take chances against Jansen’s 140 kph deliveries. “The boy was bowling faster than Craig Alexander, and Craig is not a slow bowler by any means,” says Jacobs
A week after his debut in the nets, Jansen made his debut for North West in a One-Day Cup match at the Wanderers. It was the final. The same Wanderers Stadium where he beat Virat Kohli’s bat three times in a row outside off stump during a net session at the Wanderers. He was 17 when he drew a ‘well-bowled’ from an exasperated Kohli. Jansen wasted no time. He cemented his place in the side on debut.
Also like Klusener, Jansen’s focus when he made his professional debut was to get better, stronger and faster. His target was for his average speed to be in the 140s.
But, unlike Klusener, Jansen has always shown promise with the bat and has been encouraged to work on his batting. His father (who is probably responsible for Marco Jansen’s Wikipedia) was quick to announce Jansen as an allrounder. As a youngster, he batted at number four and opened the batting on occasion. Graham October, the CSA scout who made sure the Jansen brothers were part of the SA Under-19 camp is adamant Jansen is an allrounder. Laurence Mahatlane, the former SA Under-19 coach shares that view.
AB de Villiers is one of three players with the most Khaya Majola Coke Week centuries. He has three centuries. Marco Jansen has one Coke Week century. Well, it’s not an official century. There is a rule at Coke Week that if your team plays and finishes early, they have to play a T20 to pass the time. North West played that filler match against Northern Cape and scored a century. Jansen’s highest recorded score at Coke Week is 96.
He has a shorter journey to go as an allrounder than Lance Klusener had to go through when he transformed himself from being an out-and-out seam bowler to an allrounder. But, like Klusener who faced between 500 and 600 balls a day while working on his batting, Jansen needs to put in the hours if he is to develop into an elite allrounder.
After 10 innings, he is looking like an upgrade with the bat than some of his predecessors. When you compare his batting numbers against the most recent occupants of the bowling allrounder spot, at the same stage, Jansen holds his own.
When you combine what he brings with the ball with his offering with the bat, Jansen is on his way to indispensability as a bowling allrounder. Whether or not he will reach the Lance Klusener levels of all-round ability remains to be seen. If he doesn’t, he will certainly be more than useful in the lower order. Even if he settles for the role of a chaos batter at number seven and eight, he fills a gap the Proteas have struggled to take care of in years.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS