South Africa skipper Dean Elgar is confident that his team will bounce back in the second Test against India in Johannesburg despite a heavy defeat in the series opener at SuperSport Park, Centurion.

The hosts suffered a crushing 113-run defeat in the first Test as their batting collapsed in both innings, getting bowled out for 197 and 191.

"I don't think we are going to lack any confidence going into Jo'burg. It's never nice losing a game especially when we know we actually went wrong. And it's difficult to correct those wrongs during a game," Elgar said at the post-match media interaction.

"Hopefully building up to the Wanderers second Test we're going to have some time to reflect and learn around what's happened."

Before this Test, the Proteas had played only five red-ball games in 2021 and none since June when they won an away series in the West Indies under Dean Elgar.

"I don't think it's going to change our confidence going forward. We still have had a relatively good run in the last six months, so we got to utilise those kind of good energies we've had.

"So yeah, we definitely are going to sit down and break up the game and as a group, we're going to definitely come back on. It's kind of what I expect our guys to be doing anyways," the captain said.

India dominated the Test match from the outset as they posted 270/3 at stumps on Day 1, thanks to KL Rahul's majestic century.

"They scored over 300 which is always going to be a massive plus point for them winning the toss. It lies in the run scored obviously throughout the four days of play.

"There's a lot of learning points for us. The basics of the game still applies. I don't think we had that with regards to the batting point of view.

"Day one we started reasonably okay and then we let it go and the run rate was a little bit too hard for us to try and manage and bring down again.

"Opposition being three wickets down on day one is something that is always going to almost hurt you as an opponent," Elgar said.

Dean Elgar further said they would have to be particularly watchful against the pace duo of Mohammad Shami and Jasprit Bumrah, who shared 13 wickets between them in Centurion.

"Shami obviously posed some issues for our right-hand batters. Obviously his wickets in the first innings reflect on that.

"Bumrah is someone that's always running with energy, high energy, irrespective of if he's going for runs or not. So he's always going to challenge you as a batter.

"You've got to be very mindful of facing both of them but saying that they're quite a well balanced attack at the moment.

"Siraj can also come in and can also be a bit of a handful as he was a little bit last night. But the senior guys in Shami and Bumrah are the two guys," he remarked.

For South Africa, Temba Bavuma was the stand-out batter, scoring 52 in the first innings and an unbeaten 35 in the second dig.

Elgar led from the front with a gritty 77 in the second innings but his dismissal triggered a collapse as the home team folded in 68 overs.

"You need runs to obviously compete, safe to say that we didn't execute that in our first innings, which I thought was still relatively doable for us.

"The nature of Test cricket is that you've got to compete against the new ball and the way they started with their bowling in the first innings was something that like we obviously struggled a little bit against," he said.

(With PTI inputs)