Irrespective of the format, bowling with the new ball requires special skillsets. Especially, a fast bowler who has been trusted to take the new ball is always expected to find his ideal length on any surface right from the word go. Also, he or she needs to have a decent pace with the ability to control the swing in order to outfox the batters.
On Saturday evening, Marco Jansen, with his charismatic three-wicket first over, ticked every box from the playbook for a new-ball bowler. Undoubtedly, it was the Jansen over (second over of the match), which set up the nine-wicket triumph for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH).
After winning the toss and opting to field first, Kane Williamson would have wanted his bowlers to keep things tight on the greenish-looking surface, at the Brabourne Stadium, to restrict the star-studded Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to a manageable total. But what his bowlers went on to achieve — bundling out the opponents for 68, Bangalore’s second-lowest score ever in IPL — was perhaps way beyond his expectations. And the chief architect of this demolition was the 21-year left-arm pacer from Potchefstroom, who was playing his fifth match of the season and seventh IPL game overall.
With his 6’7″ frame and a high-arm action, Jansen is more of a ‘hit-the-deck’ kind of bowler. And there was also an appreciable bounce on offer on the Brabourne surface. But Jansen decided to pitch it up considering there was some swing in the air.
He bowled an in-dipper to start with against Faf du Plessis. The next delivery pitched on that same area but held its line to castle the former South African skipper, who did not seem to have any clue of the away movement on that delivery.
His second wicket was that of Virat Kohli’s, someone whom Jansen has admired from his early days. In fact, he was so keen to get an opportunity to bowl against the former Indian skipper at the nets during the 2018 tour of South Africa, that he used to travel almost 250 kilometers a day up and down from his house in Potchefstroom to the Wanders in Johannesburg. Jansen did it for a good 2-3 days along with his twin brother Duan and father Koos. On that occasion even a 17-year-old net bowler Jansen was quite lethal and troubled Kohli with his ability to swing the ball both ways.
The youngster implemented the same old tactics at Brabourne while bowling to Kohli. He bowled it full and angled across the right-hander. The batter was perhaps expecting it to come back in and went for the extra-cover drive. But the ball swung further away and took the edge of the bat and landed in the hands of the second slip fielder, whom Williamson had kept there specifically for that shot. A second successive golden duck for Kohli and the bowler was over the moon.
Jansen completed the over with the wicket of Anuj Rawat with a beautiful outswinger in the last ball. Pitch outside off, the ball went further away as the batter hung his bat in the air. The ball took the edge and again the second slip fielder was in action.
“I just try to keep it as simple as possible, have a nice clear game plan,” the youngster said while collecting his ‘Player of the Match’ award. “Sometimes it goes and flies good out of the hand. [On his three wickets in an over] After the first ball, I thought the ball is gonna swing nicely. Then the next ball didn’t swing as much and it went on with the angle. For me personally, I enjoyed my third wicket, the left-hander. [That over was] Definitely the best white-ball over I’ve bowled so far.”
Since making his debut for SRH against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) this season, Jansen has been pretty consistent. He arrived in IPL 2022 a bit late due to international commitments but it hasn’t taken much time for him to adjust to the Indian pitches. He has not only thrived on bouncy tracks but even on dry and slow pitches, where the lanky pacer changed his angles whenever needed and tried to bowl the stump-to-stump line more.
So far he has six scalps in five matches at 23.83 and with an economy of 7.15. When the pitches will become rough at the back-end of the tournament, Jansen is well capable of bringing out his variations like cutters and slowers. And in the Sunrisers camp, he has someone from his own country who knows a thing or two about bowling in subcontinental pitches — Dale Steyn, the bowing coach.
The South African selectors kept Jansen in the loop for almost three years before handing him an international cap against India a few months back. During this period, Jansen was one of the most consistent cricketers in South Africa’s domestic circuit. That experience allowed him to gain maturity before elevating to the top level. And when he finally got there, he impressed with 19 wickets in three Tests in his debut series.
In IPL, however, this is not exactly his debut season (played a couple of games for Mumbai last year), but being one of the first-choice overseas bowling options for his franchise for the first time, Jansen has indeed lived up to the expectations thus far.
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