South Africa's left-arm fast-bowling all-rounder Marco Jansen beat strong contenders like India's Arshdeep Singh, Afghanistan's Ibrahim Zadran and New Zealand's Finn Allen to win the ICC Mens Emerging Cricketer of the Year award for 2022.
Jansen picked 36 wickets in eight Test matches during 2022 for South Africa. He had success on tours of England and Australia, averaging just 13.11 and 13.33 respectively.
His nine Test wickets in New Zealand came at a respectable 28.55 to boot, as he contributed with the bat for Dean Elgar's side. The left-arm pacer made four appearances for South Africa across the two white-ball formats, showing early glimpses of his quality.
He claimed Shreyas Iyer in his only T20I game, and a pair of wickets in an ODI match against Bangladesh. "I am absolutely delighted to receive this award.
I have worked hard on both my disciplines over the last 12 months, especially my batting, so to be rewarded by being named the ICC Men's Emerging Cricketer of the Year for 2022 is a special honour.
I would like to thank all the coaches, support staff and my teammates that have helped me develop over the past year and hopefully I can keep improving and performing for South Africa in the years to come," said Jansen on winning the award.
The pacer's most memorable performance of 2022 came against England in a Test at The Oval, making 30 with the bat and picking 5/35 to bowl out the hosts' for just 158, underlining his credentials as a promising all-rounder to watch out for in future.