Cape Town - Top of newly-appointed Boland Rocks head coach Justin Ontong’s agenda for the upcoming domestic season will be to get Janneman Malan firing again.
Ontong has returned to his home union after a four-year spell with the Proteas’ men’s team as fielding coach and takes over from former Cape Cobras teammate JP Duminy at Boland Park.
The 43-year-old inherits a Rocks team that have managed to survive in their first two seasons of top-flight provincial cricket, which was always their top priority.
But having tasted success by winning the CSA T20 Challenge competition in their maiden season, the Rocks have since struggled to find any form of consistency across competitions.
The absence of captain Pieter Malan for four months due to a hip injury last season certainly played its part, which in turn seemed to place extra pressure on younger brother Janneman.
After a tidy start to the season in the CSA T20 Challenge and CSA 1-Day Cup for the Rocks, the explosive top-order batter struggled to hold down a regular place in the Joburg Super Kings starting XI in the Betway SA20, despite being one of the franchise’s big-money signings at the auction.
The timing of all of this was not ideal for Janneman because despite being a recent ICC Emerging Player of the Year, and still boasting an ODI average of 47.90, he had also struggled on the Proteas’ two previous tours to England and India where he averaged 22.66 and 20.66 respectively.
The Proteas also underwent a change of management during this period with Test coach Shukri Conrad overseeing the ODI team for the England series, before Rob Walter took over permanently as the new national team white-ball coach.
Both considered Janneman surplus to requirements with Walter, in particular, opting to have a closer look at other top-order batters such as Ryan Rickelton and Tony de Zorzi for the home West Indies ODI series instead.
With Janneman being cast to the international wilderness, the 27-year-old drifted through the remainder of the domestic season as he managed just 242 runs at an average of 24.20 in the CSA 4-Day Competition.
Furthermore, It seems that he has slipped even further down the national pecking order also being overlooked for the recent South Africa ‘A’ tour to Sri Lanka too.
“I still have to sit down with Janneman and have a good chat to see where his mental space is at the moment. I only saw him briefly now for a couple of days … I actually only officially start on July 1, so just been busy with planning at the moment,” Ontong told Independent Media.
“He looks in good spirits and is laughing with the boys. But you never really know what’s going inside a player until you actually sit down with him. And then ask him how he thinks he can get back into the Proteas team.
“I know he’s been told that he needs to improve his game against spin, so there are obviously areas where he’ll come to me and say ‘let’s work on this’.
“I think the most important thing is to get him into a good mental space. I think he was fighting with himself a little bit. I think being around some good players like Stiaan (Van Zyl), Pieter will be comforting for him.
“I will try and get him into a place where he’s enjoying his cricket again. ‘Jannes’ is a type of player that knows how to score runs. That’s always going to be with him. It’s just a matter of getting him to structure his innings and into a good mental space.”
@ZaahierAdams
IOL Sport