“It’s a really sad day for South Africa.” – Lungi Ngidi
Telford Vice | Centurion
THEY were born almost 69 years apart, but both in Klerksdorp. One died on Sunday, hailed worldwide as the hero he was for his courage in the face of evil. The other became, in Centurion on the same day, the first person born this century to play Test cricket for South Africa. Desmond Tutu was 80 days into his 91st year. Marco Jansen was 21 years and 239 days old.
Without the indisputable greatness of Tutu, Jansen would never have marvelled at the pristine perfection of his deeply green, unbaggy South Africa cap, the magic of the new white shirts that had the Protea badge on the front and his name in capitals across the back, and the ridiculousness of being picked ahead of Duanne Olivier.
Not quite. Jansen wouldn’t have known those joys without Tutu, Albert Luthuli, Lillian Ngoyi, Robert Sobukwe, Miriam Makeba, Steve Biko, Joe Slovo, Oliver Tambo, Ahmed Kathrada, Ruth First, Nelson Mandela and all the other luminaries in the pantheon who fought so long and so hard and sacrificed so much to free all South Africans from bondage mental and physical. Their triumph allowed the world to accept the country into civilisation, and thus back into the realm of international sport from which it had been jettisoned when even enslavers and colonisers could no longer look the other way. Tutu, a force of love, light and life, did more than most to drag South Africa out of darkness and thrust it, imperfect and blinking, onto a path towards democracy.
For a long time, Klerksdorp, since the 1830s a Dutch settler stronghold, then a farming hub, then a gold rush mecca, then an Anglo-Boer War battlefield and concentration camp — racially segregated, of course — and now a dry, dusty sprawl of heavy-set stone buildings brooding in wide streets and stewing in its history, would not have wanted to claim Tutu as its own. He was black, he was Anglican, and he refused to be subservient to the whiteness that was the law of the land. In places like Klerksdorp and far beyond, those were three ominous strikes. It needed remarkable fortitude over decades to keep fouling off the regime’s ever more unfair pitches, until the homerun of something like freedom was finally hammered over apartheid’s wall.
So the black armbands hastily added to the South Africans’ sleeves when news of Tutu’s death broke shortly before the start of play were especially appropriate. Without Tutu and those like him, there would have been no armbands because there would have been no sleeves to attach them to — because international cricket would not have involved South Africa.
Jansen, who was born in May 2000, or more than six years after the shining day that heralded his country’s first legitimate elections, would have learnt about all that at school. But he would be forgiven for not thinking about any such thing from the instant he discovered that he would play. Not Olivier, who has taken 28 wickets — more than anyone else — at 11.10 in four provincial first-class matches this season? Or Sisanda Magala, who has 15 at 14.33 from two games? Or Glenton Stuurman and his 11 at 18.00 in two matches? Why wasn’t Lutho Sipamla and his 12 at 13.58 in two matches in the squad? Jansen’s numbers — 10 wickets at 12.30 in two games — put him in that ballpark. But if Olivier wasn’t going to play how did we get to Jansen? Cricbuzz asked CSA’s selection convenor, Victor Mpitsang, for the thinking behind Olivier’s omission. He saw the text message but did not reply.
So it fell to Lungi Ngidi to try and explain Jansen being preferred to Olivier: “I wouldn’t know. Everyone’s been preparing well. It was probably a senior [player] call or a management call, because everyone was looking good. We didn’t even know who was going to play. Even myself, having not played in a while, I didn’t know if I was going to get the nod. But, like Dean [Elgar] always says, we pick the best team that we think is going to give us the result. Marco got his debut and I’m very happy for him.”
It seemed Jansen was questioning his presence himself when he loped in to deliver his first effort, a dying swan of a full toss outside off stump that Mayank Agarwal easily put away through point for four. By then not only had Kagiso Rabada and Ngidi sent down four flaccid overs, but South Africa had blown a review: Rabada had brushed KL Rahul’s upper arm, not his bat or gloves. So Jansen wasn’t helped by running into a scene bereft of the requisite tension.
Two dots followed his first ball. Then came an overpitched delivery that Agarwal on-drove silkily for four. And then an offering that veered legside, which was dismissed through midwicket for another boundary. One over, a dozen runs: welcome to the top, Mr Jansen.
Only four runs came off his next three overs, partly because he didn’t venture close to the stumps or bat often enough to be hit. Then he did — too full and too straight, presenting too good an opportunity for Agarwal not to claim another four down the ground. Jansen’s next delivery was sprayed short and wide, and dismissed to the cover point fence.
Why was he playing again? An answer of sorts came immediately: Agarwal’s shoulders spun open to a ball that left him, and the resultant edge flew just above head height towards Quinton de Kock, who dived and dropped a chance he would have expected to hold. More evidence of Jansen’s quality came with consecutive deliveries in his next over, when he induced an edge from Rahul that didn’t carry and beat him outside off.
After lunch, Jansen began his second spell as he had his first — with a gimme that Agarwal muscled through extra cover for four. But, with the first delivery of the fourth over of that spell, Rahul lost his head and nearly his wicket to a rib-tickler that he sent spiralling over the cordon.
There are, thus, reasons for Jansen to look back with a measure of satisfaction on his first day as a Test player. But also reasons for him to know he could have done significantly better. Too often he followed a poor ball with another or, worse, allowed the pressure he had built to escape by sending down something that had no place at this level.
At 21 years and 239 days old, Jansen can afford such learning experiences. He should take inspiration from Sipamla, who had a similarly underwhelming debut day exactly a year ago on the same ground against Sri Lanka. Having struggled through 14 lacklustre overs in which he took 1/68, a revitalised Sipamla claimed 3/8 in two overs the next day and finished the match with six wickets.
Jansen could also follow the example of Rabada and Ngidi, who redeemed themselves through discipline and consistency, and by showing patience while the sun hardened a surface whose early dampness slowed the ball without offering the expected reward of seam movement. Swing was there little.
Ngidi ended only the second century opening stand scored by any of South Africa’s opponents at this ground — and just the fifth of 50 or more — by trapping Agarwal in front for 60 midway through the second session with a ball that looked to be sailing high and wide. On referral, and after a lengthy delay, Hawk-Eye said otherwise.
“I thought it was a good shout,” Ngidi told on online press conference. “If anything, I thought it was going to be umpire’s call. But when Marais [Erasmus] kept his finger down, then it became a gamble. I thought it had kept low compared to the bounce that I was getting. Trying to convince the team was another situation. But I think ‘Quinnie’ was in [Elgar’s] ear, and he said at worst it would be umpire’s call. When it started taking so long [to reach a decision] everyone started doubting themselves and saying we might have lost a review.”
With his next delivery, Ngidi had Cheteshwar Pujara caught at short leg by a tumbling Keegan Petersen. An hour after tea, Ngidi drew Virat Kohli into a ragged stroke wide outside off that became a catch at first slip.
Ngidi had last played any cricket in a T20 World Cup warm-up match on October 20, and his most recent first-class outing was the second Test in St Lucia in June. Before Sunday, he had bowled 553 balls in first-class cricket in 2021. Olivier had bowled 1,700 deliveries, Jansen 1,053, and Rabada 990. Perhaps Ngidi’s success on Sunday could be ascribed to freshness.
But it would have needed more than one bowler in decent form to stop India from reaching 272/3 at stumps. Rahul will continue on Monday, hoping to turn his undefeated 122 into something monumental.
If the South Africans need a diversion before play resumes, they might wonder whether Jansen is their tallest ever player. At 2.06 metres, he has 10 centimetres on Morné Morkel, no less. More morbidly, the home side could ponder why an India tour seems to coincide with a significant death. In December 2013, Mandela died on the same day as an ODI between South Africa and India at the Wanderers. In January 2018, the Wanderers Test started the day after the demise of jazz great Hugh Masekela.
And now Tutu. Klerksdorp, like the rest of the country and much of the world, is in mourning. “It’s a really sad day for South Africa,” Ngidi said. Should Jansen amount to a fraction of his fellow Klerksdorper as a human being, nevermind a mere cricketer, he will have done great things.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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