Being South African captain would mean a lot to me: Dean Elgar
Dean Elgar, the left handed South African opening batsman and a frontrunner to be the new captain for South Africa in the longest format, expressed his desire to lead his country, citing that leadership is something that comes naturally to him.
In an interview to Cricket South Africa, Elgar was quoted as saying, “It’s definitely not an easy journey being a Test captain but I think leadership is something that comes extremely naturally to me. I’ve captained teams in the past, right up from school level to the provincial level and at franchise level. I enjoyed it extremely and if I was asked to take on the captaincy it’s definitely something I would think long and hard about because it would mean a lot to me.”
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Elgar has had some experience of captaincy for South Africa as well. He captained his country in two Test matches, one of which was a defeat in the 2017 Lords test to England by 211 runs and the other one being a 107 run victory over Pakistan in 2019. Before his International debut, he captained the South African U19 side in the 2006 U19 World Cup as well.
Elgar was also asked by ESPNCricinfo in a separate interview about whether he would make a case to take over captaincy given that he has played 63 Test matches to date since his debut in 2012, scoring 3888 runs at 38.5 with 12 hundreds, to which he replied, “Captaincy is not like going for a job interview, where you hand in your CV. You don’t put your hand up for it. It’s something that’s decided by someone else and it’s who they think is the best person for the job. It’s good for players to have confidence and back their abilities, but when you do that, you can put yourself in an exposed position.”
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After Du Plessis’ resignation from captaincy earlier this year, after South Africa lost a Test series at home to England, Elgar, along with Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen and Keshav Maharaj have emerged as contenders to lead the South African side in Test Cricket. Cricket South Africa have to make the decision before their tour to the West Indies for a 3 Test match series.