Proteas on to his thanks to all-round contribution

By his own admission, Marco Jansen is “cuckoo in the head.”

A lot of what goes on in Jansen’s head is related to constant self-doubt. “I sit up late at night and think of how I want to play and how I want to be as a cricketer. And it’s sort of deep questions and hard questions that I ask myself. But at the end of the day, I just want to be a player that the team can lean on,” said Jansen.

He’s just had two of his best days in Test cricket — scored 85 runs, taken five wickets and an amazing catch — but has to manage persistent insecurity. “Sometimes it’s quite easy to get a bit hard on yourself if you’re not feeling that rhythm or if you’re not feeling good from a batting or a bowling perspective.”

“If I can contribute one percent to the team winning, then I’m more than a happy player. Stats are nice and all those things, all those achievements, but at the end of the day for me it’s just, asking: can I put the team in a position to win?”

Jansen has certainly done that in the second Test in Gqeberha. He’d already turned the momentum of the match with his blistering batting display and then on the fourth day his five-wicket haul ripped the Australian first innings to shreds, giving Temba Bavuma the option to enforce the follow-on.

“The guys bowled really well with a lot of intent and energy,” said Jansen.

He has looked a lot sharper at St George’s Park than he did at Kingsmead a week ago, where aside from one spell after lunch on the first day, he generally seemed deflated. “I felt I bowled well in Durban,” Jansen claimed.

He acknowledged that the different conditions and particularly the bounce in Gqeberha has been to his liking. “The ball has maybe got a bit more bounce or a bit more seam, and fortunately for me, it just got the edge.”

Four of his five wickets came via catches behind the stumps, with that extra bounce proving to be decisive.

He was grateful for the local knowledge he’s acquired as a member of the Sunrisers Eastern Cape SA20 franchise for aiding his catch that dismissed Marnus Labuschagne. “The wind definitely helped me there. At St. George’s, especially in that pocket (of the field the wind swirls … so you think you hit it, but as soon as you hit it up in the air, you always stand a chance. When I saw it go up, I thought it was going to go over my head, and then I felt the wind from my face while running back, and yeah, I just sort of stayed at it, and luckily I just caught it.”

His mini battles with Labuschagne have proved decisive in both innings. They shared some words in the morning. “It’s just us boys having fun in PE,” said Jansen. But his disciplined bowling to Labuschagne after tea, helped build the pressure, which led to Labuschagne’s rash shot and Jansen’s excellent grab.

As with his batting, the catch was timely, as it opened up an end, with Kagiso Rabada then bowling Matt Renshaw, followed by Simon Harmer trapping Beau Webster lbw.

Jansen praised those two, along with skipper Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram for their leadership, which has helped him when those moments of self-doubt have crept into his head.

“Those four guys, I’ll definitely say they play a massive role, not only from a friend perspective or from a player-to-player perspective, but also from a group perspective. Because there’s four guys you can lean on and sort of share information and ask for advice.”