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After extensive talks with red-ball coach Shukri
Conrad, who was quite complimentary of the player who had been demoted as
captain when Conrad took over, Dean Elgar decided to retire from Test cricket.
Elgar’s decision to quit as an international player
following the Test match against India in January has not been made public, but
it is believed that Conrad did not include him in his longer-term plans despite
the limited number of Test matches that Elgar played. Conrad, however, claimed
that Elgar’s choice was only partially caused by the calendar.
“The fact that we haven’t got much Test cricket
is part of the reason we arrived at the decision we arrived at,” Conrad
said in Centurion, where South Africa will take on India from Boxing Day.
“Ideally, we would like to play more Test cricket because the more Test
cricket we play, the more opportunity we’ve got to blood cricketers for the
future. If we have fewer Tests, that means I’ve got very little opportunity to
blood young cricketers. Sometimes we arrive at decisions like Dean’s now
because of a lack of cricket and a lack of opportunity to blood young
players.”
Elgar would have had plenty of opportunity to
continue, should he have wanted to, as South Africa only played two Tests in
2023 but will play ten (one against India, two in New Zealand, two in the West
Indies, two in Bangladesh, two at home against Sri Lanka, and the Boxing Day
Test against Pakistan) in 2024. Given that Temba Bavuma and the most of the
other first-choice XI will be playing for the SA20, it is highly likely that he
would have been asked to captain South Africa once more in New Zealand. Elgar,
however, made the decision to retire at home, where Conrad stated that the
group intends to give him “the perfect send-off,” honouring the way
he has come to represent South Africa.
“Dean epitomises what a South African cricketer
and almost what a South African person is about: resilience, dog fight, pride
in performance and that ability to never back down,” Conrad said.
“Those are all the elements that Dean has brought to his extensive
international and first-class career and to all the sides he has played in.
Hopefully if some of the young bucks that are going to be stepping up into
those big shoes, half of the characteristics and the qualities that Dean had,
then we will be in a good space.”