South Africa player Marco Jansen has shared the advice he recently got from Australian legend Ricky Ponting, that has the South African pacer in top form ahead of the ICC World Test Championship Final as well. However, Jansen was in sublime form during the recent IPL season, claiming 16 wickets from 14 matches for the Punjab Kings under Ponting.
Jansen said that Ponting had instilled a lot of confidence in his bowling since he joined up with the Punjab Kings earlier this year and he is planning to use that when they play against Australia in the one-off Ultimate Test.
“Before I left (India), he (Ponting) just said ‘good luck, I hope you do well, but I hope you lose’,” Jansen told ICC Digital from Arundel on Tuesday after the opening day of South Africa’s warm-up match against Zimbabwe which was washed out due to persistent rain.
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“I learnt a lot from him, especially from a mental point of view. He is always positive and he always sees the good stuff instead of the bad stuff, if it makes sense. And I think that’s why he’s a legend of the game, because you always lean towards what could happen instead of what could go wrong. For me personally in the IPL, he’s helped a lot in that regard, because he always reminds you what could be, what you can do and what could happen instead of what couldn’t happen,” he stated.
Recently, South Africa announced that recently retired speedster Stuart Broad would join them in a consulting role before the World Test Championship Final and Jansen is excited about this as well.
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“Obviously ,he’s played a lot against Australia at Lord’s,” Jansen said of Broad. “Maybe I will pick his brain on what they did back then or what they did when he was playing to get certain batters out. And then, because I mean, you can ask all those questions and you can try and do it, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work necessarily.”
“You might get a guy out with a ball that you never even planned bowling. So it’s good to have the information. But like I said, once you’re on the pitch on that day, you have to figure it out for yourself and then whatever plan you have or plan you think could work, just try and do that and you hope it pays off and you hope you execute well,” Marco Jansen concluded.
