World Test Championship: India captain Rohit Sharma on Tuesday praised his South Africa counterpart Dean Elgar who will be playing his farewell game in the second and final Test starting here on Wednesday but said his team will do its best to win the match and salvage the two-match.India had lost the first Test at Centurion by an innings and 32 runs with Elgar scoring a match-defining 185 off 297 deliveries that helped the hosts post 408 in their first innings.
Dean Elgar has been a thorn in the side of India, both as a player and captain in recent years. Elgar led by example the last time India toured South Africa, finishing as the second-highest run-getter in the series with 235 runs, as the Proteas completed a comeback from 1-0 to win 2-1. Most recently, Elgar was the Player of the Match in the first Test with a stunning 185 that blew India out of the game. The visitors succumbed to an innings defeat, extending their wait for a series victory in South Africa.
Elgar, playing his final international match, will captain South Africa in the absence of Temba Bavuma, who suffered an injury during the first Test.
In the pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Rohit Sharma was effusive in his praise for his opposite number but wants to halt the southpaw in his final outing.
“He’s been their mainstay for a number of years now. Gets a lot of runs against us for sure but again a quality player,” Rohit said. “Somebody who puts a big price on his wicket and doesn’t throw it away just like that. [You have] got to get him out.
“It will be important if we can get him early and try to see what the other batters do with him not being there. We know how important he is to them. He likes to score big runs and bat long as well.
“We have got our plans. Hope it works out for us, it clearly didn’t work out in the last game but hopefully, it will [in the next match]. Hopefully, we can make it [his last match] miserable [laughs],” said Rohit.
Elgar, on the other hand, expressed his single-minded focus on winning the series in the lead-up to his last Test match, even comparing it to the significance of a World Cup win.
“I only play the game to win,” Elgar said on the eve of his final Test. “I don’t care about stats. I care about wins. I care about series wins. That’s the greatest memory you can ever share with your team, everyone that has got an influential role in the background,” said Elgar.
Besides Elgar, the Indians will also be hoping to get the better of South African pacer Kagiso Rabada, who claimed 5-59 in 20 overs, to help dismiss the visitors for 245, propped up by a fighting 101 by K.L Rahul. Debutant pacer Nandre Burger impressed everyone with a haul of 3-50.
On their part, besides K.L Rahul, India will be looking up to former captain Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer, who had shared a 68-run partnership for the fourth wicket to rescue India from a precarious 24/3.
But despite these efforts, South Africa made a perfect start to the World Test Championship 2023-25 as they sit on top of the table with a 100%-point percentage.
Meanwhile, India, finalists in the last two editions, find themselves in a challenging position, aiming to recover lost ground after dropping to the 6th position following a loss and penalties incurred for a slow over-rate.