Elgar an unlikely working class hero

Times Media - February 21, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Port Elizabeth

Dean Elgar struck 83 blows for the unemployed at St George’s Park yesterday. That’s how many runs he scored on the first day of the second test between SA and Australia.

Come April, Elgar will be out of a job because Cricket SA have decided not to renew his contract - a decision announced with senseless timing two days before the start of the match.

“It was disappointing news to get before a big test, but it was added motivation to show some people they have made the wrong decision,” Elgar said.

SA were 214/5 when bad light ended play seven overs early, a decent recovery from the 11/2 they sunk to within the first hour.

Much of the home side’s hopes for banking a sizeable total rest with AB de Villiers, who set a world record yesterday.

De Villiers’ 51 not out marked the 12th consecutive test in which he has reached a half-century in a streak stretching back to the match against Australia in Perth in November, 2012.

That game was also where Elgar took his test bow. Until yesterday, Australians knew him for being dismissed for a pair of ducks on debut, and for dropping David Warner on 26 in the first test in Centurion last week. Warner went on to make 115.

In both innings at the WACA, Elgar was softened up with short deliveries and then dismissed by Mitchell Johnson - whose match haul of 12/127 was the key to SA’s demolition by 281 runs inside four days in Centurion.

So the pressure couldn’t have been more squarely on Elgar. But he also needed to show his soon-to-be former employers an appropriate two-fingered salute.

Elgar showed patience - he took 43 minutes and 20 balls to get off the mark - and composure under the pressure of being asked to open for the first time in his 10 test innings.

Elgar, Wayne Parnell and Quinton de Kock were the new faces in the XI. They replaced Alviro Petersen, who was ruled out with a virus, Ryan McLaren, who was concussed by Johnson in Centurion, and Robin Peterson, who was dropped.

Parnell’s inclusion was expected and Elgar’s was forced, but De Kock’s addition to the squad on Tuesday night as cover for Petersen was a bolt from the blue.

There could, in fact, have been four changes to SA’s team. Vernon Philander awoke with a tight hamstring and was undergoing a fitness test on the outfield when Graeme Smith emerged for the toss. Only after Philander jerked his thumb upward, a minute or so before the coin was spun, was Smith able to hand over his team sheet.

What with the westerly wind pumping hard, Smith followed convention and chose to bat. But, less than six overs into the match, both he and Hashim Amla had been dismissed.

Elgar found in Faf du Plessis a partner who understood that runs would not come easily on the slow surface. Carefully, they accumulated 112 together before Du Plessis, midway through the second session, gave his wicket away for 55 by edging Nathan Lyon onto his pad and to short leg.

With a century beckoning, Elgar smeared Lyon to leg and sent a looping leading edge into the covers.

De Kock, just 21 and playing in his 21st first-class match, walked out with a cartoon version of a foetus in the womb glowing weirdly from the scoreboard. Seven runs and 17 balls later, he hoisted a Steve Smith delivery to mid-off.

If they are to turn a good enough position into a challenging total, SA can’t afford more soft dismissals today.