CAPE TOWN: Stand-in captain Dean Elgar said he will not let the emotions of his final international outing impact the game when South Africa take to the field on Wednesday for the second, and final, Test against India at Newlands.

Elgar, 36, is retiring from international cricket after the brief series and will captain the side in the place of injured Temba Bavuma as South Africa chase a 2-0 series victory after winning the first Test by an innings and 32 runs in Centurion.

“It’s business as usual for us. It’s a massive test for us, obviously our highlight Test match of the year, the New Year’s Test at Newlands and it doesn’t get much bigger and better than against really tough opposition in India,” Elgar told a press conference on Tuesday.

Elgar was named man-of-the-match after scoring 185 in the first innings of the opening Test and is key to home hopes of winning again.

“I’m not too focused on what’s going on behind the scenes around myself. It is what it is, and every player who has retired before has gone through much the same thing. For me, it’s another game and we’ll worry about the retirement afterwards.”

Elgar said South Africa had been determined to make a positive start to the series and now seek to finish it off in similar style.

“It being a two-match series, we knew we couldn’t afford to start slowly, unlike some of our series in the past. We really played well [in Centurion] and it was probably the perfect Test, except for some of the catching,” he said. “There are quite a lot of young and inexperienced players in our team but they have a great opportunity. Tomorrow, we need to obviously throw the first punch and we’ve talked about the position we’re in and the occasion.”

Injury to Bavuma provides Elgar with the captaincy in his final Test, a fortuitous turn of events after being replaced as skipper 10 months ago.

“I don’t think you get a bigger accolade or bigger credit from a playing point of view in your career than to be asked to captain your side,” he said.

“I did it in the past for a year and a half and it was probably the best learning experience for me as an individual, not just from cricket but off the field too,” he added.

Regarding the second Test, Elgar said it was important to focus on the match and not his personal situation.

“It’s a massive Test for us, our highlight Test of the year,” said Elgar, who has been linked with English county sides Somerset and Essex.

“We have another game where we have to make a solid start. We’ll worry about the retirement afterwards.”

South Africa’s young side can expect something of a backlash in conditions that will be a little less intimidating than in Centurion and where a chastised Indian side have promised a better performance.

South Africa are unbeaten in six pre­vious Tests at Newlands against India.

Meanwhile, Indian captain Rohit Sharma fended off home criticism by pointing out previous success away from home.

“We might have put in this performance here, but don’t forget what we did in Australia and England,” he said. “We won the series in Australia on the back of our batting. We drew the series in England through our batting and bowling both. These performances can happen. It doesn’t mean we don’t know how to bat outside India.

“Sometimes the opposition per­for­ms better than us,” he said.

Rohit said his young batsmen will simply have to find a way to cope with the “challenging” conditions.

The Indian captain said he did not expect conditions for the second Test to be much different from those at Centurion.

“The pitch looks pretty similar to Centurion,” he said. “Maybe not full of grass but there is enough covering of grass on the pitch.”

Rohit added that team-mates who were in Cape Town said conditions appeared to be much as they were then, when the highest team total in a tightly-contested match, won by South Africa, was 223.

Three of India’s top six batsmen are on their first tour of South Africa and they all struggled at Centurion. Rohit said they would have benefitted from the first game.

“At some stage we all have to be exposed to conditions like this,” he said. “I am sure they will have learned a lot from the first game and tomorrow is another opportunity for them.”

In the mean time, Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has returned to full fitness after missing the first Test with back spasms and could be in line for selection.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2024