Ken Borland

Dean Elgar has a reputation amongst opposition teams for being a bit gabby, but the Proteas captain is not afraid to talk about his own shortcomings and on Sunday he revealed the hard work he has been doing to get his batting back on track ahead of the Test series in Australia.

Opener Elgar is one of the senior statesmen in the South African batting line-up, usually setting a solid tone up front, but he was disappointed with his output on the England tour, scoring just 107 runs in five innings.

The left-hander revealed that he has done a technical overhaul, that seems to be working judging by his form for the Northerns Titans in domestic four-day cricket. Elgar scored 55 and 25 not out to help steer the Titans to a 10-wicket win over the Central Gauteng Lions at the Wanderers on Sunday. With his 137 against the Free State Knights, he is averaging 72.33 this season.

“It feels good to get runs under the belt, obviously to influence the team and to get my game in order with something big coming up [the Australia Tests]. I’ve had a nice three weeks prep.

“I’ve been able to get my confidence back up high and sort out some technical stuff. Knowing where your off-stump is is important, one of the basic fundamentals, but there are a lot of other basics I’ve worked on too.

“I was doing stuff in England which I never used to do, so I broke down my technique and tried to make what I thought were weaknesses less so.

“Having experience really helps because I know when something is wrong, although it is easier said than done to fix it. But it’s nice to be able to do it at domestic level where there is less pressure,” Elgar said.

Visiting captains always feel the heat in Australia, so Elgar has been well-advised to make sure his own game is shipshape. The straight-talking skipper did not hide his disappointment that his vice-captain, Temba Bavuma, and senior fast bowler Kagiso Rabada, who are both sure to feel the warmth Down Under too after underwhelming T20 World Cup campaigns there, have not played any four-day cricket before the tour.

“KG is maybe one exception because his workload is quite high and I can maybe understand him having the time off with fast bowling being extremely demanding,” Elgar said.

“But batsmen should ideally be trying to utilise time in the middle, although I have no control over the medical rules. But playing domestically is the best place to get form and confidence.

“Getting runs here can really change your thought patterns. So it has been nice to see a lot of the squad playing and working on technical flaws. A guy like Kyle Verreynne has obviously worked hard and scored a lot of runs.

“I’m a bit concerned with our seam bowling though. There has been a lot of emphasis on T20 cricket and the bowlers are not conditioned enough for long spells or bowling all day,” Elgar warned.

Proteas captain Dean Elgar admitted he found the batting conditions in their Test series in England to be extremely tough and, like an elder brother protecting his siblings, he said he had nothing but sympathy for the inexperienced other batsmen in their squad.

South Africa were bowled out for just 118 and 169 in the third and decisive Test at The Oval, losing by nine wickets on Monday. In the second Test at Old Trafford, they could only manage totals of 151 and 179 as they lost by an innings.

Elgar, who has now played 79 Tests, scored just 107 runs in five innings in the series. He, Sarel Erwee (127 at 25.40) and Keegan Petersen (122 at 24.40) were the only Proteas batsmen to score over a hundred runs in the three Tests.

The rest of South Africa’s top seven at The Oval had only played 44 Tests in total and they were all on their first Test tour of England. No wonder Elgar identified inexperience as the key weakness of South Africa’s batting.

“This series was really up there with the toughest conditions I have faced in my career. So I can imagine how the guys with just one or two Tests to their name must feel,” Elgar said.

“We had a lack of experience, a lack of exposure to Test cricket and the conditions in the UK. There was swing and the ball nipped quite a lot. Coming to England, you can be exposed if the conditions are tough.

“It was tough for them, they are trying to learn at the hardest level with no experience around them. I always bank on experience, but we don’t have that at Test level.

“We’ve got to try and ease the blow for them, but who do we have in first-class cricket back home?” Elgar said at the post-match press conference.

Having now lost the series, Elgar was once again subjected to the questions about ‘Bazball’ he loves so much, but he said England had played good, accurate Test cricket rather than anything ultra-aggressive.

“I thought England played at the correct tempo, nothing extraordinary, but when their tail was up then they would strike when they had to. They showed just general, good Test awareness.

“They weren’t ultra-aggressive, they just played at a really good tempo. But you can manage and control that when you are ahead of the game.

“I didn’t see the B-word come to the fore at all. They just controlled the last two Tests well, they played really good cricket and they were pretty accurate,” Elgar said.

South Africa are bringing in Ryan Rickelton for the injured Rassie van der Dussen for the third and decisive Test against England at The Oval from Thursday, but they are considering other changes as well as captain Dean Elgar continued to express his disappointment with the batting.

The 26-year-old Rickelton will win his third Test cap after scoring 114 runs in two Tests against Bangladesh at the end of last summer. He played four first-class matches for Northamptonshire in June/July and collected two centuries and four fifties.

The other changes the Proteas are expected to think long and hard about are whether to continue playing a second frontline spinner in Simon Harmer or recall Marco Jansen, and whether to make a second change to the batting line-up by leaving out the struggling Aiden Markram and bringing in Khaya Zondo or all-rounder Wiaan Mulder.

“Ryan is in and we’re pretty confident about him after he had a decent stint in the UK playing county cricket, it’s his chance to hopefully shine,” Elgar said on Wednesday.

“But we’ve done a lot of thinking and spoken about tough decisions, and I’m sure there might be one or two extra changes. I know how much top-order runs mean to set up victory for a team.

“We’ve spoken at length about that and now it’s time to walk the talk. Our batting at Old Trafford was not our proudest moment, but you’ve got to go through the grief and then crack on and focus on what’s next.

“We’ve had a few rough matches in the past and at the end of the day we have come out okay. I like to think that past experience will play a part and we can stand up and bring our best game,” Elgar said.

Test aficionados will be delighted that the series is coming down to a decider in the last match and Elgar said the third Test would be his biggest game since taking over the captaincy.

“This is the biggest Test so far in my captaincy period, it’s like a World Cup final for us, that’s the way I view it, and the players know and sense that. It’s one of those Tests you play as if it is your last.

“We need to empty the tank and leave everything on the field. It’s going to be huge, it’s a massive game for us. I’ve never experienced a series win against England, so that’s in 10 years.

“So it would be massive for me if we win, but also for the youngsters in the team. We are going in with real confidence. We may be in the World Test Championship final later because we are in a really good spot – if we manage to win this Test then we’ll be back at number one,” Elgar said.

Having last week given the impression he believed it was only a matter of time before the middle-order clicks, Proteas captain Dean Elgar now seems to have lost patience and said changes were going to happen for the third and decisive Test against England starting at The Oval on September 8.

South Africa will be forced to make at least one change to the batting line-up, with Rassie van der Dussen returning home with a fractured left index finger.

Van der Dussen’s place has been under pressure as he has now gone 13 innings without a Test half-century, although his 41 in the second innings at Old Trafford, spending nearly three hours at the crease when his finger was obviously causing him pain, was a substantial effort. It probably would have saved him, but ironically he now cannot play.

Aiden Markram is still very much in the firing line, having gone 15 innings without reaching fifty. His only chance of survival would seem to be if the Proteas management decide it would be too risky bringing two inexperienced players into the middle-order for the series-decider.

Van der Dussen is likely to be replaced by Ryan Rickelton, who has played two Tests against Bangladesh at home, or Khaya Zondo, whose only Test cap came as a concussion substitute on the final morning of the Gqeberha Test against Bangladesh, and he did not bat.

“There are a few tough decisions coming our way,” Elgar said after the Proteas’ innings defeat in Manchester. “Obviously we have to replace Rassie, so that’s a definite change.

“But whether that’s the only change, we’ll have to see, we’ve got a few days to get ourselves a better combination. The bottom line is that we need runs from the middle-order and they have let us down quite a bit. The guys know it already.”

Markram’s cause is not helped by both his dismissals at Old Trafford making him look like a clot: In the first innings he fell crucially just before lunch, skying a pull at a Ben Stokes long-hop outside off-stump; in the second innings he got a nick to an ambitious drive on the up, outside off-stump, against Stuart Broad.