MUMBAI: While all the limelight was understandably on centurion Heinrich Klaasen, the role of his 'partner-in-crime' Marco Jansen cannot be ignored in South Africa's 229-run rout of England in their 2023 ODI World Cup game.
Coming in at No 7, the beanpole fast bowler blasted 75 off 42 balls in a blitzkrieg which included six sixes, each of them landing deep into the 29,000 near-capacity crowd. As England captain Jos Buttler pointed out after his team's thrashing, the 'Klaasen-Jansen show,' which produced 151 in 77 balls, was the "main bit of the game," as it left England with a massive 400-run target. After stroking his maiden ODI half-century, the left-arm pacer took the key wickets of Dawid Malan and Joe Root in a five-over spell to signal his emergence as a potentially world-class all-rounder and a dangerous finisher.
