Marco Jansen and the Unicorn Definition: South Africa's Tall Shadow and the Question of the All-Rounder

The wind at Gqeberha was moving through the stadium like a flute when the scoreboard read 110 for six. South Africa's innings had folded, and out walked a six-foot-eight shadow named Marco Jansen. I was in my Mymensingh studio, watching old footage while monsoon rain tapped the window; on screen, Jansen's bat was being assembled slowly, as if a storm were measuring its own pace. He made 85. But this innings felt less like a story about runs and more like a story about the word all-rounder. What do we actually mean when we say it? Who gets inside the definition, and who is left outside? Jansen is the latest test case. His frame, bounce, left-arm angle and bat speed make him look like a cricketer built in a laboratory. Outside the laboratory, cricket is made of people, teams, selectors, pitches and markets. There, the idea of two players in one is far more complicated.

South Africa's all-rounder tradition is not a new story. Mike Procter, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Jacques Kallis, Wiaan Mulder, Jansen: the line is long, and each name changed a team's balance in his own era. Kallis's 13,289 Test runs and 292 wickets are the grandest monument in that line. I grew up watching old tapes of Kallis; his batting was like patience, his bowling like cold air through a suddenly opened window. Jansen is the latest name, but his numbers are arranged unevenly. At the start of the third Test, he had 99 Test wickets at 20.81. His batting average was 25.66. At first glance, the bowler dominates. Yet 85 from 110 for six at Gqeberha points toward batting potential. The question is how much one innings can show, and how much one average can hide.

Jansen's bowling creates a specific geography. Six-foot-eight, left-arm release, a high ball coming down: the combination forces a batter into two decisions, back or forward. His bounce does not merely intimidate; it breaks footwork half a second early. In that Gqeberha innings, his long levers let the bat reach the ball late, but in the first few overs he left balls outside off stump with patience. The 85 was not only power; it was a window into his batting mechanism. A window does not show the whole room. His batting still has a structural weakness: when the ball is pushed across him outside off stump, his feet can stall, and when conditions move toward swing, the risk rises. That is why 25.66 is not just an incomplete number; it is a warning.

Jarrod Kimber's line belongs at the centre of this discussion: a true all-rounder is measured by his effect on the entire team. Kimber's words are simple, but the test is hard. Cricket's oldest shortcut says that if a player's batting average is higher than his bowling average, he is an all-rounder. Accept that, and Joe Root and Don Bradman become all-rounders. Root's bowling average is nowhere near his batting average, yet he is one of the modern game's finest batters; Bradman has one Test wicket, but nobody calls him an all-rounder. The average comparison is not a definition; it is comfortable laziness. A true all-rounder is a player who could be selected for either skill; whom a captain can keep in the side and still add a bowler without weakening the batting; who changes the team's balance, not just a line on the scorecard. This functional definition excludes bits-and-pieces players, and it excludes specialists who only bat or only bowl. It is also subjective, because team strength, era, conditions and selectorial philosophy all shape it. A player might be an all-rounder for a weak side and not for a strong one. Still, the test is useful because it moves the all-rounder from personal statistics to team work.

Such players are rare. A century and five wickets in the same Test has happened only 41 times, by 29 players. Ian Botham did it five times. Botham, Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan and Kapil Dev formed the golden quartet, but even a golden age is a collection of exceptions. Keith Miller made 2,958 runs at 36.97 and took 170 wickets at 22.97; Alan Davidson made 1,328 runs and took 186 wickets at 20.53; in the tied Test of 2026, Davidson became the first to score 100 runs and take 10 wickets in the same match. Garfield Sobers belongs in a separate category. These names remind us that all-rounder is not an ordinary position; it is a rare event, requiring a rare alignment of body, time and team need.

The boundary of the category can be tested with wicketkeeper-batters. Adam Gilchrist batted in the top six on 23 occasions in 96 Tests; was he an all-rounder? His jobs were two, gloves and bat, but without bowling many people say no. Chris Harris, the unassuming useful all-rounder, is another edge; he was not a star, but he worked on team balance. Sri Lanka's batter-spinners are another boundary. This is why the all-rounder's definition is less tidy than a scorecard; it is a working definition, centred on the ability to take more than one role when the team needs it.

Cricket discourse has a template bias about what an all-rounder looks like. Outside Asia, the imagined all-rounder is usually a fast bowler who can also bat. Ravindra Jadeja and Shakib al-Hasan are among the greatest of their era, but the language of all-round greatness still gives the pace-bowling showman a larger frame. Attitudes to pitches carry the same bias: a seaming pitch is called honest, a turning pitch is called tricky. In England, the maverick image of Botham, Andrew Flintoff and Ben Stokes is powerful. The all-rounder who arrives with a cigarette dangling and the smell of beer, then wins a match, casts a long romantic shadow. Sam Curran is a useful left-arm bowler and an inventive batter, but he does not fit that silhouette. Moeen Ali has felt undervalued in England; his spin and batting are both useful, yet he is often kept away from the centre of the conversation. Australia's Andrew Symonds, Shane Watson, Mitchell Marsh, Cameron Green and Beau Webster are fine all-rounders, but few have sustained it. The comparison is culturally interesting, even if West and Asia are broad generalisations and the examples are selective. One bias is hard to escape: our memory pictures the all-rounder as a fast-bowling hero, not a spinner or a quiet utility player.

Against this background, Jansen can be called a unicorn, but a unicorn is a mythical animal. His bowling is already Test class; 99 wickets at 20.81 supports the claim. His batting average of 25.66 is a room for potential, not proof. The 85 at Gqeberha was a statement, not a season. One innings does not create a category; it only opens the door. Here lies the danger of the lab-built language. A laboratory cricketer can do both jobs; in real cricket, body, calendar, contract and selection committee decide how much work a player actually does. In franchise cricket, teams want one contract for two skills, but the market pays more for one skill. In that economy, the all-rounder is a salary-cap unicorn: useful in two jobs, priced like one. Every transfer window is a ghost story: someone is always haunting the shirt they used to wear. Two games in a week is a reality no medical team can fully manage; the all-rounder's body is the biggest bet. The scarcity of all-rounders is therefore not only a talent shortage; it is the combined result of workload, injury risk, specialisation and selection incentives.

There is a danger in the Jansen conversation. Dale Steyn's praise that he is currently the best cricketer in the world is bound by the word currently. Faf du Plessis's admiration also comes from Jansen's bowling impact. The batting evidence is still thin. If Jansen lifts his batting average above 30 over the next two years, the definition will change; if not, he will remain a bowler who can bat. The definition has another weakness: could be selected for either skill is subjective. A player might be an all-rounder for a weak side and not for a strong one. The test is a heuristic, not a law. The cultural critique is broad, too; the line between West and Asia is cleaner than reality, and the examples are selected. Yet one blind spot is hard to avoid: collective memory remembers the all-rounder as a stylish, attacking, match-winning figure, and remembers the quiet worker less. That is the blind spot.

The next two years will decide whether Jansen enlarges the category or the category shrinks him. His left-arm bounce and tall frame have already given South Africa's attack another shape. If the batting becomes permanent, he really is two players in one. If not, the unicorn will remain outside the zoo, kept only in the cupboard of imagination. The wind at Gqeberha is still on his bat; the question is whether that wind will give birth to a new category, or wash the old romantic picture one more time.