Dean Elgar may not have played in a world cup but for him winning a Test series carries equal importance and that’s how he wants to sign off. Elgar will retire after the 2nd Test against India that starts from Wednesday in Cape Town.
The 36-year-old hopes for a 2-0 clean sweep against India and will be leading South Africa in the absence of Temba Bavuma who has been ruled out due to fitness concerns.
“I only play the game to win,” Elgar told reporters on Tuesday. “I don’t care about stats. I care about wins. I care about series wins. That’s the greatest memories you can ever share with your team, everyone that has got an influential role in the background. Test series wins – you don’t top that. Maybe a World Cup win is up there. I have never had that opportunity but this is my World Cup. This is my arena where I want to win.”
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India captain Rohit Sharma praised Elgar and acknowledged how the latter ha scored plenty of runs against his team. The opening batter has scored 996 runs in 14 Tests so far against India while averaging 43.30 including two centuries.
“He’s (Elgar) been their mainstay for a number of years now. Gets a lot of runs against us for sure but again a quality player. Somebody who puts a big price on his wicket and doesn’t throw it away just like that. (You have) got to get him out,” Rohit said.
“It will be important if we can get him early and try to see what the other batters do with him not being there. We know how important he is to them. He likes to score big runs and bat long as well. We have got our plans. Hope it works out for us, it clearly didn’t work out in the last game but hopefully, it will (in the next match). Hopefully, we can make it (his last match) miserable (laughs),” he added.
Elgar was the star with the bat for South Africa in the first Test as they crushed India by an innings and 32 runs. He scored a magnificent 185 in the first innings.
“I don’t think you get a bigger accolade or bigger credit than to be asked to captain. I did it in the past for a year-and-a-half or whatever it was and it has been the best learning experience for me as an individual – not just from a cricketing point of view but off-field stuff,” Elgar said.
“I give my 100% whether I am playing or captaining and I am going to have that mentality going into this game. For me, it’s about showing the right ways for the younger players and hopefully that catches on,” he added.
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