South Africa’s Test cricket captain, Dean Elgar is quietly confident about the Proteas’ prospects against England ahead of the second Test match at Old Trafford in Manchester, which starts on Thursday.
The Proteas won the first Test at Lord’s in London by an innings and 12 runs, last week. Elgar has been on the winning side more often than not as the Test skipper over the past 18 months.
The Proteas have won eight out of 10 matches under his leadership and winning by an innings and 12 runs, inside three days at the home of cricket last week, couldn’t have been sweeter for the tourists.
“What happened in the first test was something amazing for us. We played really sound cricket as we have been doing the last year. The hunger was up there I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. We want to play a brand of cricket that everybody loves at home and hopefully, the world enjoys. It’s difficult to read the future I hope the second test goes the same way but it’s going to be a lot tougher and England are hurt and will be coming at us with a vengeance,” says Elgar.
England was unceremoniously bundled out for 165 and 149 in the opening match of the series. Spearhead of the bowling attack, Kagiso Rabada who took five for 52 in the first innings and two for 27 in the second innings, moved up to second place in the ICC’s player rankings.
The other seamers, who were in the wickets, Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortje who took 10 scalps between them, broke into the top 40 while left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj moved up a spot into 19th place.
“Yeah they had a brilliant game the wicket obviously assisted them as well at Lords you got to put the ball in the right area and they did that its comes back to the hunger. Our bowlers are leading the pack at the moment they are extremely hungry for success. There is a lot of competition between them. The way they go about things is very professional, it’s a great asset to have them leading the pack like that you don’t have to speak to them much, they know what they have to do they have been around the international scene for a while now they know it’s a very tough series. What we have done is in the past, got a lot of learning out of that, they have to start again it might be totally different. It might not suit them blasting out a biting attack they have to adapt to the conditions in front of us,” Elgar explains.
The second Test at Old Trafford gets under way at midday South African time.
