Africa-Press – South-Africa. It wasn’t the start that Dean Elgar would have wanted as the Proteas lost the opening Test of a three-match series against Australia, going down by 6-wickets inside of two days in Brisbane.
While the pitch certainly played its part, the Proteas batsmen will reflect on a tough Test match where innings scores of 154 and 99 simply weren’t enough to put Australia under enough pressure.
Speaking to reporters after the match, skipper Elgar faced the inevitable question of how the Proteas would handle the defeat with a must-win second Test in Melbourne coming up, starting on Boxing Day.
Elgar was quizzed as to how the Proteas would refocus and if that would include any changes to the team, or was the defeat simply down to the pitch and difficult batting conditions?
“But I think you have to go away and give your batters the confidence and the positivity.
“I think the guys in the changing room have played enough cricket to know that this was maybe one of the incidents where let’s be honest and let’s be real about what’s just happened, and it’s not like our guys were just throwing their wickets away.
“We were getting jaffered out, and they [Australia] bowled properly.”
Elgar stressed that consideration would be given to all of these factors when analysing the Test match and preparing for Melbourne.
“You have to take all of that into consideration, and that’s definitely the way I will be approaching that,” Elgar added.
“Coming into this game, our batters were confident. We prepared bladdy well, and we played the warm-up game where most of the guys got good runs and time in the middle, so it’s not like the confidence is low.
“I think we need to be realistic around what’s just happened. We do have extra days now where the guys need to tap into their mental spaces, which I think is your biggest enemy at the moment because you can withdraw yourself from what’s happened instead of facing it and learning from it. So that would be my approach going forward for our group.”
The second Test gets underway on 26 December.
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