Marco Jansen let out a loud, perhaps uncalled for, roar directed at England pacer Mark Wood after reaching a world cup century for which he apologised to the bowler later on.
It was an emotional outburst triggered by the fact that he had copped a few painful blows to his leg from the bowler and the punishing the sauna-like conditions in the middle of the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai he battled through to get to the milestone.
Klaasen blasted 109 off 67 to propel South Africa to 399/7, a score that proved 229 runs too many for the defending ODI world champions England.
Klaasen was quite physically exhausted by the hot and humid conditions during his memorable innings.
South Africa pacer Marco Jansen has revealed the chat he had with Klaasen after walking in to join his team-mate who was then few runs away from the milestone.
Klaasen told Jansen how he has been struggling but the latter kept him going by asking him to stop complaining and instead focus on getting to three figures as quickly as possible.
“Why you complaining?!” Jansen told Klaasen.
“He (Klaasen) was 81 or something and I knew the hard work he did to get there. I told him, you are not going to walk off this ground until you get your hundred. You can do whatever you want after getting there,” Jansen said on Saturday.
“By the end of the innings, I knew what he was talking about; it was tough out there. But I am not going to allow him to work that hard and not get to the century. It was just a matter of 2-3 shots! Luckily he listened to me. I didn’t think he was going to but he did. I knew how physically tough it was; I am very happy that he got his hundred,” he added.
Klaasen said he had difficulty breathing and his body had given up.
“It was like being in a Sauna. It was very draining. I couldn’t breathe. It’s like the body has given up and I had to dig really really deep to carry on. Jansen helped me through that phase,” he said.
Jansen, who himself scored a brilliant 75 not out, said the conditions reminded him of what it’s to play in Paarl back home but it’s not as humid as Mumbai.
“Tonight was very tough; I have to take a lot of ice baths to recover. It was very taxing. You have to drink lots of fluids else you might get a blurry vision. I think there is one place in South Africa that may be similar to this is Paarl; it’s not this humid but very hot,” Jansen said.
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