India vs South Africa: Towering Jansen stands tall with all-round show

Guwahati: Before play resumed on the third day, Marco Jansen was engaged in a conversation with his legendary compatriot Dale Steyn. One of the greatest fast bowlers the sport has ever seen, Steyn appeared to be demonstrating grips and angles as the eager young quick listened intently.

A few hours later, Jansen produced the kind of spell Steyn unleashed on India during his prime, especially when conditions suited him in their own backyard. Think back to Ahmedabad in 2008 when he took 5/23 or Nagpur in 2010 when he demolished the hosts with 7 for 51. That Nagpur performance also happened to be South Africa’s last Test win in India before the recent triumph in Kolkata. Just like those iconic spells paved the way for Proteas victories, Jansen’s outstanding return of 6/48 -- second-best figures for a South African pacer in India -- has now placed his team on the verge of their first Test-series victory in the country in 25 years.

At 6 feet 8 inches, Jansen literally towers over everyone on the field, but over the past two days he's stood even taller in performance. His talent with both bat and ball are obvious, but his 2.1-metre frame grants him an extra edge. With that enormous reach, the right-handed batter, who bowls left-arm, nullified India’s spinners on day two on his way to a superb 91-ball 93. On day three, he used his height to devastating effect, banging the ball in and extracting an unsettling bounce that shattered the Indian batting lineup. As one batter after another trudged back, undone by his relentless short-pitched assault, one wondered whether the surface was an Indian track or something transported straight from South Africa.

Ironically, despite his height giving him such dominance, Jansen would perhaps happily trade it for the skill set of shorter fast bowlers such as Steyn who can hit the top of stumps rather see their balls fly over                                 

"For me, I've always struggled bowling in India whether it was white ball or red ball... I'm still jealous of people that get the ball to squat and nip back," he said as the media contingent broke into a laugh. "... Yesterday was a perfect example, the ball goes over off stump because I'm so tall like a different bowler like KG (Kagiso Rabada) that's hitting top of off. So I've always been jealous of those people who are a bit shorter than me.

"(But) on the reverse, when there's a wicket with a bit of pace and bounce then I get to extract more out of it, especially here. I've tried to learn what's going to work for me, what's going to help me to perform to the best of my ability and help the team win and today was just one of those days. I got the pace and the bounce out of the wicket and it's just one of those days where everything clicks and everything works and as a player, those days you take it and you run."   

Terming the pitch as a good one with a bit of pace and bounce, Jansen said he didn't expect the day to pan out in the manner it did and believed spinners had a great role to play over the next two remaining days.  

"The ball is starting to turn a little bit. Some of the balls are stopping as well from the spin, so I think the game is going to go more to the spinners' side of things, in my opinion," he offered. "I think the pace and the bounce will stay there but for seamers in particular, I think, we're going to have to make the new ball count. It's still a good wicket, it's not a bad wicket if you bowl well you'll get wickets, if you bat well you'll score runs. You're just going to have to figure your way of doing it with the bat and with the ball irrespective of the features."

Having reached his first-ever score of 90 in a first-class match of his career, Jansen, who fell at the score 93, admitted he suffered from nervous 90s and that he would have been better off going for big shots rather than slowing down.

"Yesterday when we went to the hotel I just tried to switch off and tried to blow some steam off. So I called the family I called my brother, sister, mom, dad you name it," he noted.  

"I was nervous when I had 20... Yeah, it's funny because when I walked in, I faced three balls and Sen (Senuran Muthusamy) looked at me and said 'just breathe' and I thought I was very calm but clearly he just told me to breathe and that helped massively. I've never been in the 90s before in first-class cricket, never mind Test cricket. So I was definitely nervous but I was nervous in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s... I was nervous the whole way through but yeah I think in retrospect next time I'd rather get caught on the boundary than defending or trying to push it for one.

"But that's a learning that I take out of it but the whole experience was fun the crowd was amazing and yeah playing against the best in the world and performing is very is very nice to get that because everyone, not just our team, all the teams around the world they work hard every single day, So to get performances under your belt is always pleasing."