When Marco Jansen First Bowled to Kohli — The Beginning of an Unexpected Rivalry
Let me take you back to a moment that now feels almost mythical, especially when you look at where Marco Jansen stands today. Before he became South Africa’s rising all-round force—swinging matches with both pace and power—he was just a very tall, very nervous 17-year-old net bowler hoping for a chance. And that chance arrived in January 2018 at the Wanderers, long before anyone imagined he would one day trouble Virat Kohli on the world stage.
Picture this: India were preparing for the final Test of a lost series. The nets were busy, the support staff rushed, and a young pair of twins—Marco and Duan Jansen—sat in a dusty dugout with their father, Koos. He had driven an hour and a half from Potchefstroom just so his boys could watch the Indian team and maybe, if luck smiled, bowl to one of their heroes. The brothers barely slept the previous night, imagining deliveries to Kohli and Rohit Sharma.
But things weren’t going to plan. India had a whole battery of fast bowlers on tour, and the net bowlers weren’t needed. Marco and Duan spent most of the session collecting balls, fading slowly as the afternoon wore on. At one point Marco even misjudged a catch while trying to grab a miscued shot. He trudged back to his father, disappointment written all over him, thinking the day was slipping away.
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Then, almost magically, the moment appeared. Kohli, still hungry for more batting after the main session wrapped up, asked for a left-arm pacer. The Jansen brothers shot out of the dugout instantly. And suddenly, there he was—Marco Jansen, raw, lanky, adrenaline pumping—running in to bowl at the best all-format batsman in the world at that time.
Marco managed to beat Kohli a few times with his natural angle and bounce. Each time, Kohli paused, tapped his bat, and told him, “Well bowled.” For a teenager who had almost gone home without bowling a single ball, those two words must have felt like gold. At the end, their father pushed them to take a picture with the Indian captain. They hesitated, but eventually walked up, shy and smiling, capturing a moment they thought would stay as just a sweet memory.
Little did they know how prophetic that day would become.
Three years later, in 2021, Marco made his Test debut. And in a surreal twist, his very first ball to Kohli in international cricket took the Indian captain’s edge. He went on to dismiss him multiple times in Tests, becoming something of a red-ball nemesis. By 2025, he wasn’t just a promising kid anymore—he was South Africa’s star of a historic 2-0 Test win, blasting 94 runs with seven sixes in Guwahati and tormenting India with bounce and pace.
Now, as the ODI series rolls into Ranchi, the story comes full circle. Kohli, still fighting to keep his 2027 World Cup dream alive, and Marco, now a spearhead with unfinished business in the 50-over format, meet again. What began as a picture in the nets has turned into one of cricket’s most fascinating cross-generation duels—respectful, intense, and shaped by fate in ways neither could have imagined back in that Wanderers dugout.
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