Elgar a metaphor for SA’s comeback

Times Media - February 27 2014

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

South Africans will not remember Dean Elgar’s performance in the first test against Australia in Centurion for the right reasons.

David Warner slashed a delivery from Vernon Philander to fine leg, where Elgar put himself under the ball in good time, cupped his hands immaculately, leaned into a controlled dive - and dropped the catch.

Warner was 26 not out. He went on to score 115. Elgar was not even in the XI: he was fielding for an indisposed Dale Steyn. Cricket could not be more underwhelming.

Nine days later, after the first day’s play in the second test at St George’s Park, Elgar went from zero to hero by scoring 83 in the first innings.

Two days earlier, a perhaps prescient Morne Morkel had described Elgar as a “staffie”, as in stocky and tenacious, at a press conference

Now sat in the same chair, Elgar called himself a “pie-chucker”. Three days after that, in fading light and in front of a crowd frenzied by the imminence of victory, Elgar chucked one of his pies at Nathan Lyon - who edged it high onto his pad. Umpire Richard Illingworth said - or would have said - what the hell and gave Lyon out leg-before regardless.

Thanks to that, SA, smacked upside the head by Mitchell Johnson’s 12/127 and smashed by 281 runs in Centurion, won by 231 runs in a scarcely believable reversal of fortunes.

Elgar had not, as AB de Villiers, JP Duminy or Hashim Amla had done, scored a century, and his left-arm slows were indeed more steak-and-kidney than turn-and-bounce.

But when it mattered - when Alviro Petersen was downed by a virus and SA wobbled to 11/2 less than six overs into the match, and when one more wicket was required to beat the next day’s rain and with that Australia - the staffie proved that his bite was at least as bad as his bark.

As a walking, talking, performing metaphor for SA’s comeback in the series, Elgar fits the bill perfectly. After Centurion, he said little, pulled his game towards itself, and took the opportunity he was given. This time, he held on with both hands.

And he did so despite having being axed, with Cricket SA’s customary comical clumsiness, from the list of nationally contracted players on the same day that he learnt he would replace Petersen in the side.

Not that Elgar can expect any special treatment for the crucial role he played in the second test. Petersen seems set to regain his place, which means Elgar would be shunted back down the order if he is to keep his place.

“He has a hundred batting in the middle order,” Russell Domingo said yesterday with reference to the 103 not out Elgar made against New Zealand at St George’s Park in January, 2013.

“When you bat at No. 6 you are likely to face the second new ball so it makes sense to have someone like him there as well. But those things will be decided later.”

Domingo also pronounced himself “very happy with the job Dean and JP (Duminy, SA other part-time spinner) did with the ball”.

Whatever. SA and Elgar know how to bounce back, regardless of what they’re asked to do.