'It's all about slowing things down' - Marco Jansen ready to embrace leadership role

South Africa start their home summer program without their two most experienced seam bowlers as Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi recover from respective hamstring injuries, but there is someone ready to step into their shoes. Marco Jansen doesn’t have Rabada’s 258 international games or Ngidi’s 159, but with 83 internationals across all formats, he is the next most capped seamer and knows it will be up to him to show that.

“It feels like I’m going to have to take that leadership role,” Jansen said from Durban, where South Africa have gathered ahead of their first ODI on Thursday. “I have to try and lead from the front. It’s probably going to be my first time taking up such a role so I’m quite excited for that. I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do if put in such a role.”

Jansen will begin his task in the format he knows better than any other, ODIs – he has played 32 ODIs compared to 30 T20Is and 21 Tests – but will rely heavily on what he learnt from the senior pair.

“Leadership, and I’m only basing it off of playing with KG and Lungi and all those guys, is that when things go sideways or when things are tough, especially in the field, you have to have a way of calming things down and slowing things down. That’s probably what I’ll be trying to do,” Jansen said. “The last thing you want when you’re struggling in an over or at the death and guys are flying, is someone just giving solutions and saying, do this or that. It’s important to realise and to pick the moments where a bowler needs a bit of time to try and slow things down and just ask one or two simple questions like, ‘What’s the plan here or how are we going to get this guy off strike?’ Just try to slow the game down or slow the momentum down.”

Taking more time to do things is something Jansen has not really been able to do for most of this year. Though South Africa’s schedule was limited to T20Is only – and he played just seven across the home series against West Indies and the T20 World Cup – Jansen has already played a total of 44 matches in 2026 including at the IPL, MLC and the Hundred. That’s four fewer than his busiest years in 2023, 2024 and 2025, when he played 48 games, and with three months of the year to go so that tally will go up. Of those, 43 were in the shortest format and only one, a red-ball game but that may have been the most important.

Jansen began his home season with a seven-wicket haul in the domestic first-class opener last weekend, where he starred in bowling the Titans to victory over the Dolphins in Centurion. What stood out was not just that he was the Titans’ chief destroyer but that he also bowled the most overs in the match: 26 and that was by design. Jansen needed to get himself into his rhythm after a pre-season that almost went awry.

“My build-up to that four-day game or first-class game didn’t go as planned. I planned to bowl at least like three or two weeks before and then unfortunately got sick. I was on antibiotics for a week-and-a-half or two weeks so that sort of cut my preparation short. Before that four-day game, I only had three days of prep and felt heavily undercooked,” he said.

“But, in the match, I felt good. My timing felt good. My body felt good. I did some physio work in the build-up to that, especially coming back from after the Hundred, I felt I had to sort out a bit of stiffness in the body. In that match in particular, I felt good, especially as the game progressed. On the third day, I bowled like a nine or ten of a spell where I felt 100%.”

Having Jansen in a good space will be a positive for a South African side that is also without Ottneil Baartman, thanks to a third hamstring problem, but better news it that there’s the possibility of two Jansens at their disposal. Marco’s twin Duan was added to the ODI squad after Baartman had to be withdrawn and made an impressive debut in the three-match series in Namibia, where he was South Africa’s leading wicket-taker.

The presence of another left-arm seamer in Kwena Maphaka means it may not be possible to fit all them into the same XI but the brothers can dream. “We know we do the same skill, basically, but that would be special,” Marco said.

At senior level, the Jansens have only played two matches together, in the 2014 CSA T20 Challenge for provincial side North West. For what it’s worth, their side won both games and both were in Potchefstroom.

That’s the venue of the third ODI, close to where the Jansens are from and technically, their home venue. In an ideal world, that’s where they’d like to take the field together. “To play any game for the Proteas together would be special. But I think if it were to happen in Potch, that’ll be even more special. We grew up near Potch and obviously went to high school in Potch. If it pans out like that, it’ll be awesome,” Marco said. “If that opportunity presents itself, you better believe that we’re going to make the most of it and enjoy it as much as we can.”

Firdose Moonda is Cricinfo’s senior correspondent for Africa and women’s cricket

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