South Africa vs India: Jansen brothers impress Virat Kohli, Ravi Shastri at the nets

It is not an everyday story to see 17-year old twins get special attention in the Indian team net session. But on Monday at the Wanderers, Johannesburg, Jansen brothers managed to bag quite some limelight. Team Indian bowling coach handed fresh new balls to Marco Jansen and Duan Jansen in the Indian team net sessions. The young colts found themselves bowling to the likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Murali Vijay, and Ajinkya Rahane.

Both Marco and Duan are left arm pacers and they seemed to have impressed India’s head coach Ravi Shastri and the Indian skipper Virat Kohli. Jansen brothers are yet to feature for the U19 team of their local franchise, Highveld Lions. Hence, coming in for the practice, they did not expect themselves to be bowling the longer spells and felt that the senior Highveld bowlers would be bowling the longer spells.

However, the Indian batsmen appreciated the way Marco and Duan bowled. They found themselves as the preferred net bowlers in the session. Both Marco and Duan expressed their excitement on being a part of the session. The Indian management was so impressed that they called the duo for another net session as well.

“It’s a huge blessing and honour to bowl against the best guys in the world. We are thrilled to learn a lot of stuff. It was good to see how they (the Indians) go about their business and approach their cricket,” Marco quoted as per the quotes in FirstPost.

“We couldn’t believe it actually. We thought we were going to bowl shorter spells and those guys going to bowl longer. But it seemed the other way around,” Marco said further.

“We were so excited about today that we couldn’t sleep till 1 o’ clock last night,” Duan said.

The Jansen brothers were accompanied by their father, Koos Jansen to the venue. Koos drove over 150 km to help his sons make it to the Wanderers at 9:30 in the morning for the session. He was very proud of his boys and looked optimistic about their future.

“Until now, they (the senior Lions’ players) probably did not know my boys. But from today, I am sure both Duan and Marco will be on their radar,” said the father of the talented twins.

Not in the big books for the first time

Interestingly, this is not the first time that the Jansen brothers impressed a big name of Indian cricket. Last year, when the India A side had travelled to Potchefstroom, they had the privilege of interacting with the head coach of the India A side, Rahul Dravid. Dravid had asked the talented duo to keep working hard and strive harder to make it to the next level, the U19 cricket.

“They had pictures with Dravid and they kept showing it to everyone. Obviously, it was a huge moment for my boys. He (Dravid) told them to keep up the good work and try to reach the next level, which is the Under-19 side of the Lions,” Koos remarked.

They currently play for the Dragons, the B side of the Highveld Lions. Jansen brothers are optimistic of making it to the U19 side in the coming future. Marco noted that they failed to make it to the U19 World this year but are targetting the berth for the next edition of the youth World Cup.

“We actually tried last year (for the ongoing Under-19 World Cup) to impress the selectors. Unfortunately, we couldn’t. We did not do our best. But I think, now we will practice hard and at the end of this year, we will try to impress them once again so that we get selected (for the next youth World Cup),” Marco conceded.

Stay updated on today’s cricket news with CricTracker.