South Africa Appoint Dean Elgar as Test Skipper; Temba Bavuma Handed White-Ball Captaincy

Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Thursday (March 4) appointed Dean Elgar as the Test captain of the national men’s side while bestowing limited-overs leadership upon Temba Bavuma.

Elgar, Proteas’ dependable Test match opening batsman, has previously also worn the captaincy badge but on an interim basis, leading the side at Lord’s against England in 2017 and versus Pakistan at Johannesburg in early 2019.

New white-ball skipper Bavuma, on the other hand, has overseen domestic assignments for the Lions franchise between his international engagements. Bavuma just recently took his team to the domestic T20 title and is now primed to lead South Africa in the upcoming major world events.

Elgar, meanwhile, will be captaining South Africa in the next cycle of the World Test Championship, with Bavuma set to play his deputy in the format.

Dean Elgar raising his bat after completing the century

“We want to back them, we want to support them, and we want to empower them to take South African cricket forward; hopefully into a better cricketing space than what we have been in over the last period,” Graeme Smith, CSA’s director of cricket, told a press conference as per Cricbuzz.

Smith Has Faith On Elgar And Bavuma

Smith reaffirmed the faith he has on Elgar and Bavuma and believes they can revive South Africa’s fortunes at the highest level.

“I’ve played with Dean and known him a long time, and he epitomises the character we would like to see from our line-up,” he said. “There’s no hiding from the fact that we need to improve as a cricket team – our results and our standard of play need to improve. Dean leaves everything on the field. Tactically we will be there to support him. He leads by example and certainly has the experience. The time is right and he wants the job, which is an important part of captaining. If you’re a reluctant captain it makes it very hard.”

“We’ve always known about Temba’s leadership qualities… the way he’s been operating in the squad and experience he brings. The nature of his tactical captaincy at the Lions, and the feedback we’ve received from within the squad – from the managers and coaches – has been really positive around Temba.”

“We dug deep, and both these men came out with flying colours. We believe they’ve got cricket brains, the right character, the right credentials to shift South African cricket into a positive space.”

Burden Of Leadership Was Too Much On De Kock: Smith

CENTURION, SOUTH AFRICA – DECEMBER 26: South Africa batsman Quinton de Kock hits out during Day One of the First Test match between England and South Africa at SuperSport Park on December 26, 2019 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Both Elgar and Bavuma have replaced Quinton de Kock at the helm. De Kock, the prominent wicketkeeper-batsman, was appointed limited-overs skipper in February last year and given Test captaincy duty also in December. But multiple defeats in his tenure seemed to weigh high on De Kock, who was given a mental health break upon return from the Pakistan tour in January.

“Since he’s got back from Pakistan we’ve had a number of engagements with him,” Smith said. “It was felt that the burden of leadership was just too much for a person or a player like Quinton. We wanted to free him up. His commitment to South African cricket is there. We want to get the best out of him as a player and as a team man. He’ll certainly form part of our leadership group, but we felt this was the right way to move for South African cricket and back a consistent way forward.”

“There’s always a bit of emotion around these things,” Smith said. “Quinton understands that there’s a burden that comes with leadership. It hasn’t been an easy time for him either. He’s a proud guy. But myself and the selection panel and the coaches truly believe this is the right way forward. It required us to make a tough and important decision for South African cricket. We feel it’s a very difficult job to captain in all three formats. The stresses on one man to do that, the workloads, the job in itself… we felt it was too much to give to one person.”

Victor Mpitsang, the convenor of selectors, revealed De Kock wasn’t sacked from his job. Instead, he reached an agreement with the selectors that allows him to focus solely on his game.

“The agreement with Quinton was that we needed a Test captain, and it was just an interim job until after the Australian series [scheduled for March], which never happened [because of Covid-19]. Quinton probably feels that he needs to focus on his game. We’ve come to an agreement to say that he doesn’t need the captaincy any more,” said Mpitsang.