Marco Jansen had a night “where I go cuckoo in the head,” ahead of the fifth day of the final Test against Australia, as he spent the witching hours wondering if or how South Africa would take 10 wickets and seal the series against Australia.
“I probably slept for one-and-a-half hours, maybe two, and that was a mixture between looking out my window, going to the bathroom, having a coke, I don’t know. Last night literally I didn’t get any sleep,” he said at the post-match press conference after winning the player-of-the-series award. “I was thinking of what can we do, what can I do, what’s going to be required and what if things don’t go our way.”
He was not thinking of what had already gone his way. Three days earlier, Jansen was named the No.1 bowler and allrounder in Test cricket by the ICC, and he backed that up with the crucial wickets of Matt Renshaw and Cameron Green just as Australia were starting to get away from South Africa in the first innings. It may be that the accolade has yet to sink in but he doesn’t seem to be letting it define him.
“I just see myself as a lightie (a youngster) from Klerksdorp,” he said, referring to the agricultural and mining city that he was born in. “When I started playing professionally and I started my career for the Proteas, I never even thought of getting in the top-10 bowling rankings or allrounder rankings. Fast forward to now where I’m on top of those lists, firstly it’s surreal, and secondly, like my dad used to tell myself and my brother: moenie laat jou kop te groot raak nie (don’t let your head become too big).”
He doesn’t need his father to issue that reminder either. His head coach will do it just as well. “He’s ranked the best bowler in the world but is he the best bowler in our team? We can still debate that,” Shukri Conrad said. “But he’s one of the best, there’s no doubt about it.”With Kagiso Rabada as the headline act, Jansen seems more than happy to act in support and, indeed, looked more effective with Rabada in the XI. In Durban, where Rabada sat out as he recovered from a hamstring injury, Jansen struggled to find his radar but with Rabada back in Gqeberha, Jansen had one of his best Tests.
Kagiso Rabada has been of great help to Marco Jansen•Gallo Images/Getty Images
He scored 85 runs and took a first innings five-for, which elevated him to the top of the ICC charts but acknowledged Rabada’s role in his own performance. “He gives you that little bit of extra confidence,” Jansen said. “It’s just maybe how he is in and around the guys and how he is on the field and off the field. He always reminds you what you’re doing well. Personally, that helps me a lot, especially when we’re talking about plans and tactics on the field while we’re playing.”
What Jansen has that Rabada doesn’t, is that he is a genuine allrounder. In this series, batting at No.8, he scored two half-centuries and took five catches, including a well-judged one in the wind to remove Marnus Labuschagne in Gqeberha and another at gully to get rid of Travis Head in Cape Town. His ability to contribute in all departments is what makes him South Africa’s stand out.
“He has got such a high ceiling for obvious reasons,” Conrad joked. “He can go on and achieve a lot of things, both with bat and ball. He’s got great hands in the field so he can go on and become one of the world’s best cricketers, let alone only one of the world’s best bowlers. We’d like to see him grow, in a manner of speaking. The smarts are getting there now. He’s a lot more of a deeper thinker than people give him credit for. Sometimes he tends to overthink a little bit. But he can go the distance.”
That “going cuckoo,” thing again, which Jansen now seems to be properly aware of without wanting to necessarily change. So how did it work out for him in the end? South Africa had Australia 22 for 3 in the first 40 minutes of the final day and 60 for 7 by lunch. Jansen didn’t take any of the wickets but had been in the right place and reacted quickly enough to dismiss Head and was satisfied that South Africa were in front. “We know you can’t necessarily win a Test match on the last day, first session, but you can lose it,” he said. “We knew that if we just stay patient and we just maybe get one or two wickets up front, then we’re sort of setting it up for the rest of the day. And that’s what happened, especially with KG in the first over getting two wickets and then getting another third wicket quickly after that.”
Jansen: ‘It’s that feeling that this is a team thing, it’s not an individual thing, and that gives me a lot of joy and happiness’•Gallo Images/Getty Images
Australia’s eighth-wicket pair of Cameron Green and Pat Cummins batted for 12.1 overs to score two runs before Simon Harmer switched ends and bowled Green. Then Cummins and Nathan Lyon batted together for 17.3 overs and the cuckoo clock was ticking. “There definitely a thought of hier kom ‘n ding (here comes a thing) but when I started playing, I would go searching, whereas today we had a good feeling of what the wicket was doing. We’d already taken seven wickets before lunch and we don’t have to go searching.”
South Africa were willing to wait it out and prepared to go as deep as possible. “We were already speaking a little bit about it that if they were to drag it out longer and there was, for example, an hour and a half left, then we probably would have waited for the second new ball, and then that’s probably where we probably would have tried a bit,” Jansen said. “Aiden (Markram) actually mentioned that if we didn’t expect a partnership here and there, then we must think again. So it was something we expected. They are also allowed to play well and defend well and stuff like that, so it definitely wasn’t a case of just coming out after lunch and then just killing him off.”
Jansen: Australia still have the aura
That Australia and South Africa pushed each other for 15 days is why Jansen calls this series “definitely one of the most enjoyable ones” he’s been part of, and also why he thinks it takes nothing away from the Australian aura. “It’s not gone,” Jansen said, remembering the first time he played against Australia in the 2022-23 season. “It’s still there but back then, I wasn’t nearly as experienced.
“For me, it’s a mental thing. Back then, I used to watch those guys on TV, and then it’s like you’re in awe, and then it’s the Australian crowd, and there’s a seven-year-old kid giving you grief when Scotty cleaned you up on the second ball, and there’s all those things I had to deal with and players have to deal with. Now, I’m better prepared mentally, if things don’t go our way. For example, I handle those situations a bit better, that’s, for me, the difference. But the aura from their perspective, it’s definitely still there.”
He was particularly enamoured by fellow left-armer Mitchell Starc. “He’s flipping 37, and he’s bowling 150 for five days. A guy like that, he has an aura,” Jansen said. “Every single time they make a bowling challenge, it’s not a sigh of relief. It’s actually more pressure and more pressure, and then the wicket deteriorates, and then there’s one that squats or one that dips. Mentally you’re always on edge. You always have to think, you always have to adapt, and that’s what you get playing against a team like this.”
But Jansen no longer finds his head spinning in these situations and on day five, he could enjoy what was playing out which “makes all those nights where I go cuckoo, worth it,” he said. “When we get on the right side of things, for a split second it’s a sigh of relief, that it’s finished now, and then, it’s like a really good and excited and pumped feeling. It’s that feeling that this is a team thing, it’s not an individual thing, and that gives me a lot of joy and happiness, and that makes it very much worth it for me.”
And you can be sure he got a good night’s sleep afterwards.
Firdose Moonda is Cricinfo’s senior correspondent for Africa and women’s cricket