Two shots that made a single moment
For the seventh time in seven matches, South Africa needed ice in their veins
He stands at a towering 2.06m. The first thought that often comes to mind when you see Marco Jansen on the field is that he is the best candidate for fielding at the boundary, where he can just pluck the ball from the air to prevent sixes and get you wickets. After all, his reach is often the highest in any team. However, one of Jansen’s best fielding positions is in the slip cordon, as tall as he is.
“He is a good all-round cricketer, catches well, is quick across the ground, and has a good strong arm. He ran Kieron Pollard out in one of the matches. More than decent in the slips too,” says Adi Birrell, his coach at Sunrisers Eastern Cape.
Against the Netherlands, Aiden Markram placed Jansen on first slip on the infamous Nassau County pitch. Ottniel Baartman sent in an away swinging length delivery. Max O’Dowd tried to cut it but got an edge, making the ball go flat and low. Jansen’s first thought was to go for it with both hands. But he didn’t. In a blur of motion, Jansen made a dive to his left. His dive looked a split second late, but that didn’t matter, the ball stuck onto his hand like a heat-seeking missile that had found its target.
Long man or Plank, as his Proteas, Sunrisers Eastern Cape and IPL teammates call him, is surprisingly athletic. Appearances can be deceiving. When he walks in to bat, Jansen looks like a conductor striding in to direct an orchestra. Not because everything is graceful, but that’s how small the bat looks relative to his height. Alan Kruger, his former coach at the Knights, remembers thinking that the bat looked like a toothpick the first time he watched Jansen take his place in the nets.
The vision lends a certain level of discomfort. It’s hard to be confident of his abilities if you have never watched him bat before. His laconic demeanour, which can only be rivalled by Sunil Narine’s, belies the strength in his arms. His long levers also mean that what should not be a slot ball for the average batter can be a slot ball for him.
South Africa needed 23 runs from 23 balls when Tristan Stubbs was dismissed. Keshav Maharaj can deliver some lusty blows and has batted South Africa to victory in a tense encounter. But, as the spinner joined him at the crease, Jansen knew that it was up to him for his side to win the must-win tie that would see South Africa through to the semi-finals. Jansen is no stranger to playing a clutch innings with the bat. He has done it for Sunrisers Eastern Cape. He is part of the reason why they have won the title twice in two years.
His batting statistics agree with that assessment. The 24-year-old averages 35.25 at a strike rate of 159.32 in SA20. When you look beneath those raw stats, you find something even more impressive underneath. His true average and true strike rates are 18.5 and 18.8 higher than expected. That is brilliant work with the bat.
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Things got a little more desperate when Maharaj had to depart 13 balls later. Jansen and Kagiso Rabada had nine balls to see the Proteas home. The pair ran four runs off the first three deliveries. They needed nine off seven. The only thing that could tilt the game firmly in South Africa’s favour was a boundary off the last ball in the penultimate over.
Rabada broke a few windows of their home as a youngster playing cricket in his family’s backyard. He was a decent batter, never in the top seven, but good enough to score meaningful runs for St Stithians, his alma mater. However, as he matured as a cricketer, his batting fell away. He had to focus on his primary skill.
As expected, Rabada took a single off the first ball he faced. It was prudent that he give Jansen as much of the strike as possible. Most senior batters farm the strike. Not Jansen. A single was available on the second ball of his partnership with Rabada, and he took it. Every run mattered. The pair ran byes two off the next delivery. Before the final ball of the over was bowled, Rabada met Jansen in the middle of the pitch.
Last ball of the over, this is a free hit, Rabada informed his partner. Jansen agreed.
In his career, Rabada has struck 13 fours in T20Is. This one was probably among his most important ones. The left-handed pacer had channelled his inner Brian Lara; kept his eyes on the ball, and timed his swing to perfection as he crunched the ball to extra cover's left. The fielder at long off made the run and threw his body in a desperate dive, but the ball had faster legs.
South Africa now needed five runs from six deliveries. Obed McCoy stood at the top of his mark to defend the runs. His fielders on the boundary were at deep square leg, deep mid-wicket, and long on and long off. He also had a man at deep point.
After scouting the field, Jansen had a gameplan. At the death, bowlers often try to hide the ball by going wide. If McCoy did that, Jansen was going to look for gaps and take singles off the first three deliveries. If the pacer chose to bowl straight, Jansen planned to hit to the leg side and push for twos.
Jansen had his bat grounded as McCoy ran in. He lifted it as the West Indies pacer got into his delivery stride. The South African saw the ball as big as a beach ball. It was on the line just outside the off stump. Jansen planted his front foot and swung through the line, to send the ball over the long on boundary. The shot did not have a high elevation but had just enough to send it over the rope for six.
The camera panned to the South African dugout and first on the screen was a fully padded Tabraiz Shamsi, one of the reasons why his team had chased this total. This left-arm mystery spinner is a beloved figure in the Caribbean. He has spent the past seven or so South African winters in the West Indies taking part in the CPL. This is the tournament that helped him go from being a forgettable spinner for the Titans to one of South Africa’s premier tweakers.
His CPL numbers show why he is loved by fans and teammates. He has an economy rate of 6.72, for a true rate of 1.04 and his true wickets are 5.63 points higher than expected. Shamsi overperforms in the Caribbean.
When Markram introduced him into the attack, West Indies was on 69/2 and Kyle Mayers and Roston Chase had a dangerous 74-run partnership on the go. In his first over, his captain asked him to bowl defensively and Shamsi conceded three runs in return. Anrich Nortje backed that up with an over that conceded four runs. Markram needed Shamsi to strike in his second over, and he did so, breaking the Mayers-Chase partnership with Mayers’ dismissal.
Sherfane Rutherford singlehandedly defeated New Zealand when the West Indies squared up against them. He scored an inspired unbeaten 68 off 39 in a match where no other West Indies batter crossed the 20-run mark. He can be a dangerous batter. When he came back for his third over, Shamsi saw to it that the middle-order batter did not inflict damage on the Proteas, dismissing him for nought.
But his work was not done. There was one more dangerous batter to take care of. Roston Chase was still at the crease with a 50 to his name. Shamsi accounted for his wicket with his first delivery of his final over. With those three wickets, Shamsi probably shaved off 15 to 20 runs off the West Indies’ total.
“Our team has 11 match-winners. Anyone can win the game for us at any point,” Shamsi shared after the match.
On this occasion, it was Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada. They held their nerve and struck two glorious shots to win it.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS