Elgar reflects on another brutal day in the field

The visitors kicked-on from their over-night total of 317/5 to end on 629/6 – losing only one wicket before Alastair Cook declared his first innings closed.

England would have better fortunes than their hosts with the ball as they picked up the wickets of Stiaan van Zyl (4) and Elgar (44) which left South Africa at 141/2 at stumps – 488 runs short of their opposition’s total.

“We were a little bit shell-shocked at the way things were going,” Elgar said, reflecting on the first session during which Ben Stokes (258) and Jonny Bairstow (150 not out) battered the Proteas attack to all parts of the ground.

The opener was, however, not making excuses for what transpired and insisted the Proteas have the potential to get out of the hole they find themselves in.

“Irrespective of what happened, you still have to do the job with the bat and, touch wood, it has worked for us so far.”

“Obviously you do go through those shell-shocked moments, but I didn’t have half a day to get over it. I had 10-minutes to get over it and I had to go and bat. What has happened has happened and it is what makes Test cricket so beautiful.”

Reflecting on the time he and his teammates spent in the field while Stokes and Bairstow rewrote the history books with their aggressive style of batting, Elgar admitted that although it was painful, it was still a pleasure to watch.

“It was a very intense session and a half by Bairstow and Stokes which was quite amazing to watch from where I was standing. It was a crazy day of cricket.”

Elgar was also not pointing fingers the Proteas bowlers who watched, at regular intervals, as their deliveries were sent over the boundary ropes.

“I must give our bowlers a massive amount of credit, whatever our captain asked for, the bowlers put their hands up.

“We had different game plans against the guys to try and get them out, but it was one of those days where you have to take your cap off and say to them ‘well done, you won the battle’.

“I can’t fault our bowlers at all, with regards to what they did out there today, it was just one of those days of cricket that hopefully doesn’t get repeated against us.”

Elgar wasn’t faulting skipper Hashim Amla’s approach to the crisis situation either.

He insisted the captain did everything in his power to stop the rot, and lauded him for not trying to interfere with the various approaches each player has to pressure situations.

“Hash doesn’t say much to us, as a batting unit he allows us to play and implement our game plans which is a massive feather in his cap.

“It is one of those games, even though they scored 600 odd, nothing changes up front. As a batting unit you still have to stick to your key performance areas and slowly but surely chip away at the opposition’s total.

“He doesn’t interfere with our preparations heading into an innings.”

As for his own time at the wicket, Elgar said that he was frustrated not to have converted a good start into more runs for his team.

“It is one of those frustrating moments in cricket, you feel a million dollars and one ball like that just changes your whole day, your whole performance and that is frustrating.

“With that said, there is a lot of positives that came out of my 44, I’m very comfortable at the crease at the moment.

“The English threw quite a lot at us when we were batting, because they know that once you get through the new ball it is like a honeymoon period out there for batters.”

Elgar said the Test team were going through a period of transition, and appealed to the public to bear that in mind.

“The Proteas Test team is going through a change. We ‘ve got a lot of new faces within our Test team, the same thing happened in our One Day side a while back; they also went through the same processes.

“We are going to cop a lot of abuse, but we are a strong enough unit to take it on the chin and we are also a strong enough unit to bounce back and still keep on following the processes that got us to the number one status a few years ago.

“We know it is frustrating but people should know that we don’t want to do badly.” 

ANA

(File photo)