Africa-Press – South-Africa. Proteas Test skipper Dean Elgar showed the most selfless of streaks when he moved himself out of slip during the first Test against Bangladesh in Durban.
He did grass a simple catch offered by Litton Das off Lizaad Williams’s bowling, but when the spinners were getting down to business, he left the slip fielding to Keegan Petersen while Wiaan Mulder was at leg slip.
Elgar said the conditions meant he needed to place the best fielders in the right catching positions and for the team to win, egos must be put aside.
The Proteas put themselves in a position where they can’t lose the two-Test series after beating Bangladesh by 220 runs.
“If you look at the four guys who were standing there, I most probably have the weaker catching hands,” Elgar said.
“The conditions weren’t going to allow a three slips/gully combination because if it did, I would have stayed there.
“When you want to win games, you have to put your ego aside and do what is best for the team. It was an opportunity to be next to the bowler and speak to them.
“It worked out, but if the conditions allow, I’ll be back in the slip cordon… but the Kingsmead conditions meant I needed the best guys with the best hands behind the stumps.”
Elgar said their Kingsmead success was based on how they adapted to the low and slow pitches, something that’ll set them up well for future engagements in Asia.
“It’s not the style of cricket that we want to play, but it showed a lot of character in adapting and being put into difficult and different conditions,” Elgar said.
“It showed the strength that we have in our group and the fact we have resources to adapt. We still want to go back to the normal combination we generally play with where fast bowling is the prime source of attack.
“We have to adapt as international cricketers as we play a fair bit of cricket in the sub-continent now, so it was great to have two spinners in operation.
“There are so many positives and a lot of good things that happened for us in the past five days.”
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