Having led South Africa's fight with a resolute and defiant 88, opener Dean Elgar rued his "brain-fart" as he uncharacteristically got out caught trying to loft off-spinner Dom Bess over the in-field in the first innings of the New Year's Test where the Proteas struggled their way through to 215/8 by the end of Day 2 in response to England's 269.
"I was trying to be as patient as possible and if he overpitched it, hit him to the boundary. I played him well until a brain-fart and then I had to sit back in the change room," Elgar told reporters after stumps with the hosts still 54 runs behind the visitors. "There is disappointment because we grafted hard and fought to get ourselves into a reasonably good position. We then let it slip in the final hour."
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Apart from Elgar, Rassie van der Dussen (68) also played really well for his half-century, but the rest failed to keep James Anderson (3/34), Stuart Broad (2/36) and Sam Curran (2/39) at bay for any length of time.
"I might have just chosen the wrong ball to do what I wanted to do. It wasn’t part of the plan, we wanted to wear out the English bowlers as we knew if they came back tomorrow in this heat with us only three or four wickets down, we would be in a strong position," Elgar added.
But all is certainly not lost yet for the home side with decent lower-order batsman Vernon Philander still out there to take his team closer to the England total on a surface becoming increasingly difficult for the batsmen. "There is a crack and divots outside the right-handers off-stump (at the Kelvin Grove end) and it has turned out to be a good contest between bat and ball," Elgar said.
"If you bowl in the right areas and with the right intensity as a bowling unit, the job can be done. England have one foot ahead of us, but there is a lot of assistance out there and the new ball does a lot on this wicket."
"There is also a lot of rough out there for a guy like Kesh (spinner Keshav Maharaj) and when the ball starts tuning, the chances are there."
(Inputs from Reuters)
