Janeman in India means someone you adore and Janneman Malan, pronounced as Yanneman in Afrikaans, he truly is someone who the entire Protea Land loves after his maiden ton in the second ODI against Australia.
Since the retirement of the mighty Hash post the World Cup, South Africa has been looking at various opening partners for de Kock in the shorter formats the likes of Makram, Hendricks, and Bavuma. Bavuma has been the most successful but his success has come with its fair share of injuries, hence he hasn’t been able to cement his place on a more permanent basis.
The Protea think tank with this forced problem of Bavuma, and understanding the importance of investing in youth gave Janemman a go with his consistent domestic form in the Momentum One Day cup before the Australian inbound tour. Now to slightly digress a little let’s look at Janneman’s early days paving his way into the Proteas set-up.
Born in Nelspruit in 1996, Janneman is the youngest of 3 brothers, Pieter and Andre. Pieter also got his break this season as an opener in the recently concluded Tests of the English inbound tour. Coming back to Janneman, at a young age he realized that Nelspruit wasn’t really the breeding city for cricket and he moved south to the western cape and started representing the provincial sides. In June 2018, he was named in the squad for the Cape Cobras team for the 2018–19 season. In September 2018, he was played for Western Province’s squad for the 2018 Africa T20 Cup.
He was the leading run-scorer for Western Province in the tournament, with 178 runs in four matches.
In October 2018, Janneman Malan was named in Cape Town Blitz’s squad for the first edition of the Mzansi Super League T20 tournament. In September 2019, he was again named in the squad for the Cape Town Blitz team for the 2019 Mzansi Super League tournament where he consistently gave his side fluent starts with his dasher approach at the top.
This resulted in him getting his maiden call up to the national team. Unfortunately, in his first match at the international level he was clean bowled by Mitchel Starc for a duck, not a positive first. Having said that he wasn’t really faced by this beginning and went on to score a ton in the second ODI and struck a fine partnership with Smuts and Klaasen to help his team win that match. The third innings was also a good performance. His aggression with his measured defence is highly captivating to watch and the hunger to score big when he gets a start. He is only 23 and if given a consistent run is definitely up for making the ODI opener spot his own.
What’s more, we could have seen him perform in India for the short in and out 3 match trip, had it not been for Covid 19 which is practically cancelling all sporting events around the globe.
Anyway, the future still looks bright for Janneman and we surely hope the babyface assassin will continue to impress and be adored not only in South Africa but around the world.
All hail Janneman Malan.
