Dean Elgar explains how Virat Kohli’s attacks help him play better
Both at Cape Town and Centurion Tests, stump microphones caught Indian cricket team skipper Virat Kohli giving South Africa cricket team batsman Dean Elgar an earful.
Virat Kohli hasn’t just scored heavily or made tough decisions on selection but also played a leading role in having a go at the opponents once in a while. Ask Dean Elgar. Throughout the time the South Africa cricket team batsman was in the middle in Cape Town and now at Centurion, the stump microphones caught the Indian cricket team skipper giving him an earful. Elgar, who dug in to score a valuable 61 on Tuesday, doesn’t mind it though.(SA vs IND, 2nd Test, Day 4 highlights)
“Both teams want to win and I think that’s what makes it so brilliant. We are all very competitive on the field and I wouldn’t want it any other way. He (Kohli) is a competitive feisty guy and it comes out in his cricket. I think he wants the best for his team like anyone. I’m not going to delve into what happened in Cape Town, but it’s something that really gets me going, when someone is in my ear and trying to put me down. It’s a nice motivating factor to keep me going,” said Elgar. (SA vs IND, 2nd Test, scorecard)
“It’s a competition between players who are feisty and want to win. You are going to try and do anything to win for your side when you come up against tough opposition, and we definitely have now. He is very competitive and I’m also like that,” he said.
Had it not been for Elgar’s 141-run partnership with AB de Villiers, South Africa would surely been in trouble. While de Villiers was all flair, Elgar’s was the kind of innings that was more about determination than talent. And he is fine playing that way.
“Test cricket is 70% mental and 30% what you can do on the park. I was never gifted with the amount of talent but maybe I was gifted with something between the ears. It was a bit of a mental battle, especially the way Cape Town went. Fortunately my experience at this level has helped me through those kind of battles,” he said.
This has been a closely fought Test series but Elgar said South Africa are pumped up to win this because of the humiliating defeats inflicted on them when they toured India in 2015.
“Throughout the years South Africa v India has always been a massive competition between massive rivals. Even watching as a kid on TV you could see it’s a passionate and proud series to play in and to win it is immensely special for the group. So for South Africa it will be very satisfying. I think what happened in India, we left with a lot of scars. Us giving them the kind of treatment and beating them here in South Africa is definitely going to be satisfying for us,” said Elgar.