South Africa’s Dean Elgar hopes to bow out with 2-0 Test series win over India: This is my World Cup

Stand-in South Africa captain Dean Elgar has compared winning a Test series over India to winning a World Cup while stressing the fact that he has never played in one of the 50-over ICC tournaments.

Elgar will look to cap off his international career with a 2–0 series win over India as he captains South Africa in the second and final Test, which begins on Wednesday at Newlands.

Elgar’s Test career will come to an end this week, with him being one of only eight South Africans to have scored more than 5000 runs in Test cricket. He is 167 runs away from catching Mark Boucher, who is seventh on the list and will tie Herbie Taylor for the fifth-most Tests as captain. While Elgar hopes to reflect on the runs in the future, being asked to lead the side 11 months after being stood down as captain due to an injury to regular skipper Temba Bavuma is one of Elgar’s proudest achievements.

“I only play the game to win. I don’t care about stats. I care about wins. I care about series wins. That’s the greatest memories you can ever share with your team, everyone that has got an influential role in the background. Test series wins – you don’t top that. Maybe a World Cup win is up there. I have never had that opportunity but this is my World Cup. This is my arena where I want to win,” Elgar told the reporters on the eve of his final Test.

Elgar’s brilliant hundred in the first Test was crucial in ensuring that South Africa do not lose the two-match series to India.’Temba Bavuma’s injury also propelled Elgar back into the captain’s role, which had been taken away from him in February. South Africa’s young team can expect a backlash in conditions that are less intimidating than in Pretoria, and where a chastened Indian team has promised a better performance.

Even though South Africa’s innings win at SuperSport Park last week means they cannot lose the series, Elgar does not want them to be complacent. Instead, he wants them to approach the series with the mindset that it is one they should not share because it will be played at home, with the final match at many of the players’ favourite venue: Newlands.

“We are in a fortunate position knowing that we can’t lose the series but drawing is maybe as big as a loss for us. It’s a massive Test for us, being our highlighted Test of the year. The New Year’s Test at Newlands, they don’t get much bigger and better, against really tough opposition. Playing the New Year’s Test is big for guys and they are going to have a lot of firsts so we want them to just live in that moment but be mindful of the opportunity of winning two-nil. Drawing the series is not something we are thinking about at all,” Elgar added.