South African captain Dean Elgar has shared that the team always comes first for him more than personal feats. The opener shared that he plays the game to win for the team after leading South Africa to a seven-wicket win in the second Test against India. However, while chasing 240 to win, he smashed 96 and helped his side to register a seven-wicket victory. With the win, they also levelled the series 1-1 with one in hand.
Elgar, who won the Man of the Match award, stated that team goals always come first over personal achievements are hardly significant. He was quoted by News24 as saying: “It’s another win as a captain and I’m always team over personal performances. I am team over accolades. I don’t play for the accolades. I don’t play for personal gain. I play for my teammates and I play for winning. That’s why I play this game.”
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He further added: “It’s a special day and I guess luck was on my side because I happened to be there to get the team over the line with my other teammates. I’m not going to exclude them from their achievements from the last four days.”
However, the veteran received support from all of the players in the second innings as South Africa took it to the decider one in Cape Town as well. He stitched two half-century stands with Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma, who stayed unbeaten till the end along with the captain. The third and final Test will start on January 11 at the Newlands in Cape Town.
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“I set myself a goal to bat for 40 overs and that kind of breaks the new ball up. As an opening pair, we haven’t come off in the way that we would have liked but we did in the second innings and that really helped us. In those 40 overs, it doesn’t matter what I score because on Day Two, they bowled a serious spell to me and I had to respect what was going my way. The minute I go out of my box, I’m going to go out and put the team under more pressure so I’d like to think I took a bit of sting out of their tail,” Dean Elgar concluded.
