Marco Jansen’s best and worst cricketing memories were created in the same place: Kolkata, India.The high point came three months ago, after he learnt something at Eden Gardens that he used to produce an all-round, all-star performance in Guwahati, as South Africa won a Test series in India for the first time in 25 years. (For context, that means in Jansen’s entire lifetime, he had no memory of a South African Test side triumphing in India until he was part of one.)He was the leading seamer that series and played a massive part in his team’s success, thanks to his willingness to try new things. “In the first Test match [in Kolkata], I looked at [Jasprit Bumrah], at the replays of his wickets and I saw from his hand and the ball that there were so many revs on the ball. I figured let me just try and emulate what he’s doing,” Jansen says in New Delhi after South Africa were confirmed as T20 World Cup semi-finalists. “So in the warm-up, I did it and it looked like something was happening. It seemed like the ball was actually moving off the wicket and it was like that sharp, quick movement. Then I tried it in the match and I took two wickets quickly, and I just sort of stuck with it and went with it.”
He was rewarded with a first-innings 6 for 48 in Guwahati, though it came after he’d done something that made him much happier – scored runs. Jansen fell seven short of a century and shared in a 97-run eighth-wicket stand with Senuran Muthusamy to take South Africa to a mammoth total of 489. It was that innings, and not necessarily his bowling, that changed his entire idea of how well he could perform in India. “Before that, I didn’t have belief. I didn’t really have confidence. The only thing I had was my mental strength and the desire to actually go out and score runs and win a Test match for the team,” he says.
The mental strength is the bit he had been working on since things got really bad, in Kolkata, in 2023. Jansen doesn’t shy away from what happened then, when he went from being the ODI World Cup’s top bowler in the powerplay to falling apart against India. His 9.4 overs cost 94 runs and he sent down seven wides and a no-ball. He was unable to pull himself back together by the time the semi-final came at the same venue. That was against Australia, where he bowled 4.2 overs, with returns of 0 for 35, and was taken out of the attack far sooner than he would have liked.
In the ODI World Cup in 2023 against India, Jansen went for 94 in 9.4 overs, the most he’s ever conceded in ODIs•Associated Press
Seven months later, at the 2024 T20 World Cup, which was fairly quiet for Jansen, he had another nightmare when it mattered most. In the final, he was South Africa’s most expensive bowler, conceding 49 runs in four overs. “I had a bad game there. I probably bowled at 70%,” he says.
South Africa are now on the eve of another semi-final but Jansen insists he is a different person and has the smarts to show it. “From a skills point of view, I’m more confident and also I have that extra slow ball. From a batting point of view, I’m certain about the way I want to go about my batting at the death. And then mentally, I’m way more relaxed,” he said. “Belief, being grounded, not thinking too far ahead – those are big things for me. And also dealing with my nerves and anxiousness.”
Jansen has been open about suffering stage fright and spoke about it before that game against India in 2023. Then, he said reading the Bible was one of the ways that he tried to calm himself down. Now he has added to that toolkit.
“I’m being more positive about myself, like [[using] positive affirmations and positive confirmations. And I am trying to just keep on focussing on the good things,” he said. “I don’t really think about what could go wrong, and if I do, it sort of ends up at a place where it has a positive effect. So, like, the previous game [against West Indies], I went for 50 runs, didn’t pick up a wicket. But it ended well because we won. I’ve rewired my mentality in that way.”
His father, Koos, has played an important role, by serving a dose of reality – sometimes a spicy one – when he feels his son needs it.
“First I’m going to say my dad loves me,” Jansen says. “He only wants the best for me. And I know that. I know what he says comes from a place of love.
“Basically when he sits me down, he just speaks facts. He just says, ‘You’re not playing well, so you must pull your finger. I don’t know what you’re going to do about it, but I trust you and I love you.’ He always reminds me that he loves me, and that’s all I need. And then that’s why I say it’s funny. He sits me down. And whenever he sits me down, something happens afterwards. Immediately. Not like two or three games afterwards.”
Koos is not at this T20 World Cup but “he’s a phone call away”, and Jansen has plenty of other resources to call on. He is a reader and a listener and says he does a lot of research on subjects he is interested in, which include trying to understand himself better.
“I believe I’m a traditional type of man. That’s the way I see myself,” he says. “As men, we are providers, we protect, and that comes naturally to us. I resonate with that.
“I’m not really one for being all emotional. Even though I know it’s important to speak to people – that’s why I have one or two people I speak to – it’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be. I don’t want to be sporadic in my emotions. I want to be able to control it, control my mind, control my thoughts, and make sound decisions whenever I need to.”
His performances for that franchise have made him stand out as the spearhead of their attack, and you could argue that he is starting to share that label with Kagiso Rabada for South Africa too. Jansen certainly wouldn’t complain.
“I would like to think I am a leader. But a silent one,” he says. “What’s important is, whatever I talk about, I do off the pitch and my actions match my words. I don’t want to be one of those people where I say all of these nice things, positive things, motivational things in the meetings or at practice, and then on the field I’m nowhere to be seen. I would rather say less. First, I want to do my job and do what I’m here for on the field. And if I get the opportunity or have the privilege of saying anything in a meeting, then I’ll try and use that.”
At this World Cup, he has walked the talk and is South Africa’s second-leading bowler and fifth overall. His capacity for innovation has also been on display: he has developed his own version of the knuckleball, which he calls a “sort of palm ball”. It is held more in the hand to hide his knuckles, and when he gets it perfectly right, it is around 25kph slower than his stock ball, he says.
Jansen dismantled India with 4 for 22 in the Super Eight of the 2026 T20 World Cup•Getty Images
“I always felt like I had to add a different ball to my arsenal. I always had the offcutter and I tried bowling the legcutter, but with my action it doesn’t work,” he says. “So I tried the knuckleball and it came out really well, but I felt like the batters could pick it up because I have bigger hands and bigger fingers, so you can see the knuckles of my hands. When my [knuckles] are above the ball, they pick it up quite quickly. Then I tried the palm ball, putting the ball deep in my hand. It came out nicely, but it wasn’t as consistent, and now it’s a case of it’s a mixture of the two. I’m just working on trying to hide it as well as I can.”
The palm-knuckle hybrid ball made its first appearance during South Africa’s series against England last September, when Jansen used it to dismiss Ben Duckett. He has since also deceived Mark Chapman with it, and given New Zealand are South Africa’s next opponents, it’s certain to come out again. Jansen backs himself to bowl it.
His new-found confidence in puffing out his chest sits well with coach Shukri Conrad asking his players to “show off more” because he believes they are often too humble. Slowly, that’s changing. South Africa are now embracing being called favourites and Jansen is too. Asked what it would mean if they won a white-ball World Cup, he was ready to talk about the possibility, not hiding from the suggestion as though it were a curse. “It means the hard work that we’ve been doing – as a group and as individuals, where everyone is dealing with their own things – has paid off,” he says. “It’s like building a house, just putting a brick on another brick.”
But it’s not the full structure. South African cricket sees itself as being far behind the country’s most successful sporting code, rugby, where they have won four world titles, and wants to catch up.
“Everyone here knows that there’s nothing to gain by being a team or being people that think they’re better or they think they’re unbeatable,” Jansen says. “You can only lose.
“If we win, great. If we don’t, we learn. We take that, we learn. But at the same time, we know why we’re playing. It’s not just for us, not just our families, we’re playing for the people back home. We want to be part of something bigger. It’s like the Springboks.”
Jansen says he can already see the impact the WTC win is having on the game, and that another trophy will only breed more success.
“It’s not ironic that after winning the Test final, all of a sudden the domestic players, in my opinion, and the games I’ve watched, walk around with a different confidence,” he says. “And they play better. I picked up in the SA20 this year that there’s a lot of local players that are not just there. They won matches. That’s what we want.
“If we do well here, the local system and domestic system does well. If the domestic system does well, then it’s like Australia and India – everything rises and that gives us an even better chance to win more trophies in the future.”
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo’s correspondent for South Africa and women’s cricket
