South Africa’s Test captain Dean Elgar was an elated man after his side completed a memorable comeback series win over India by winning the last two Tests in Johannesburg and Cape Town after having lost the first Test in Centurion.
They won the last two Tests, both by 7 wickets, successfully chasing down totals in excess of 200 on pace-friendly surfaces, after they had lost the first Test by 113 runs.
Dean Elgar had led from the front with the bat in Jo’burg with a gritty 96* and it was young Keegan Peterson who was South Africa’s best batter in Cape Town with scores of 72 and 82.
When asked about he turned the tide around in the dressing room after the loss in the first Test, Dean Elgar said he himself challenged his players to step up and perform. He was glad to see the kind of response they gave to his challenge.
“Challenging your players, you need characters within the group and the bowling unit has been excellent all series. I had put up a challenge after the first game and the guys responded brilliantly,” Elgar said at the post-match presentation.
“Helps to have a group that doesn’t have any real big names, they like to rally together and play as one. And that’s crucial. Extremely proud of this group of players that we have here.”
The Protea skipper revealed that he’d had “tough chats” with his team members after conceding a loss early in the series and threw challenges at them.
Elgar added: “Ultimately, if you want to operate at our performance levels, you need tough chats and I’m a bit of old-school mentality with a new-school twist. I laid a few challenges, even to some of the senior players as well. It was great to see the guys take my message on board. It’s great to see the guys buying in to you from a captain’s point of view. I think of us as a closed group, has helped us to feed off each other. We’ve played as a unit and we’ve grown massively as a group in the last two Tests.”
The 3-match ODI series starts from January 19 in Paarl.
