It has been a rough summer with the bat for Dean Elgar – but impossible though it might seem, his captaincy has been even worse.
His leadership hit a new low on Day 1 at the SCG, when he inexplicably chose to take his troops off the field for bad light rather than bowl his spinners – of which he had two in Simon Harmer and Keshav Maharaj.
This was despite Harmer looking the most threatening of all the South African bowlers in the second session, highlighted by his trapping of Usman Khawaja LBW – a fate the Aussie escaped thanks to the DRS revealing the ball had taken a deflection off his glove.
It told, just as his excruciatingly defensive fields during Australia’s long innings in Melbourne, of a captain whose only recourse at the moment is hope to cling on for a draw rather than throw everything at a face-saving win or even honourable defeat.
The Proteas’ only chance in this Test, given their well-documented feeble batting, was to take 20 cheap wickets, and leave no stone unturned trying to take them. But you can’t take wickets from the dressing room.
Elgar strikes as a reluctant captain, one who has taken up the mantle due to the utter lack of any other reliable options. His batting form reflects that: once one of the premier openers in world cricket with a handsome average of 40.72 in an era dominated by new-ball pace, he has averaged just 27.86 in 17 Tests since taking up the mantle, with not a single century.
He has had his moments – an incredible series victory in India on home soil last summer where he played a chief role with bat in hand – but this series, his shortcomings as both batter and captain have been relentlessly exposed by Australia.
Dean Elgar of South Africa. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Making it worse, rather than confronting it head-on, looking to attack the bowlers with the bat and apply pressure on the opposition with attacking fields, he has retreated into his shell. His side is mirroring him, with the result that an outfit blessed with an outstanding pace battery has, outside from the chaotic final even at the Gabba, well and truly underperformed.
Speaking on Fox Cricket, Kerry O’Keeffe summed up beautifully how a muddled mindset in Elgar’s primary skill is transferring over to his captaincy.
“He’s a little down on confidence… he’s very conservative, he’s batting conservatively,” O’Keeffe said.
“He’s out of form, and I think it’s transformed into his captaincy. He’s set defensive fields.
“You’re 2-0 down in the series, you’ve got a bowler like Anrich Nortje and a spinner like Harmer, you’ve got to be searching for poles, and he didn’t.
“I just don’t know whether his mindset has been positive enough in the situation he finds himself.”
Making his call to accept the bad light even more mystifying was Khawaja’s admission, shortly before the first delay, that he had been pestering the umpires to take the players off.
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“Do you have a glow in the dark ball up there?” he joked when speaking to Fox Cricket during the drinks break.
“They’ve got a very fast bowler that’s coming down right now, making it very tough. I’ll keep chirping at the umpires.”
Khawaja’s insistence on checking the light meter can surely not have gone unnoticed by Elgar; rule number one of captaincy, after all, is to do what the opposition least wants you do.
Given that, choosing to take the bad light played right into Australia’s hands: rather than have to face the dangerous Harmer in murky conditions, Khawaja could kick back safe in the knowledge that play couldn’t resume until visibility improved.
The Proteas have been unlucky this series – Marnus Labuschagne’s controversial reprieve after a line-ball slips catch off Marco Jansen a prime example.
But even in that incident, there were worrying signs: Labuschagne fell in identical fashion to the left-arm quick at the Gabba, prodding at a ball angled across him and edging to Elgar himself at second slip. Why, then, was Harmer the only slip on show?
Marnus Labuschagne of Australia speaks with Kyle Verreynne and Sarel Erwee of South Africa. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Speaking of Harmer, Elgar’s use of his recalled spinner likewised epitomised his muddled mind, summing up his tendency to try and minimise fast scoring rather than push for wickets.
From the moment he was introduced in the over before lunch, the off-spinner looked far more threatening than first-choice spinner Maharaj has all series. Indeed, his brief removal of Khawaja made him the Proteas’ only spinner this series for whom an umpire has raised his finger.
Yet Harmer would send down just two more overs before being taken out of the attack, despite regularly beating the edge of Khawaja’s bat with sharp turn on a pitch already looking conducive to spin. Meanwhile, at the other end, Maharaj was milked for nine overs of effortless runs by Labuschagne and Khawaja, and it took two powerful sweeps for four from the former for Elgar to remove in from the attack.
He then showed just how little faith he had in his two spinners – spinners specifically chosen for this wicket – that when the choice came between bowling them and not bowling at all, he chose the latter.
“The toughest gig in cricket is to bowl left-arm orthodox spin to a left-hand batter; particularly Usman Khawaja, who knows this pitch like his own backyard,” O’Keeffe added.
“You keep Maharaj away from Khawaja, and you offer him Harmer, who’s a boss man to left-handers.
“I just don’t know why Maharaj would have bowled nine overs and Harmer five when Usman Khawaja was at the crease. It should have been the reverse.”
Elgar doesn’t have the weapons at his disposal to be a conservative captain: there is not a chance in Hades his line-up, which is about three quality batters short, can put on enough runs to play the patient game with Australia.
His only hope is to go the same way he did in the fourth innings in Brisbane: go for all out attack, wear the boundaries when they come, and hope like hell someone on his team can pull off the once-in-a-lifetime innings they need to get enough runs on the board themselves. Incidentally, that fourth innings in Brisbane is the only time Kagiso Rabada, his strike bowler whose form has been a grave disappointment this tour, has looked at his threatening best.
Who knows what one of Elgar’s predecessors as Proteas skipper, the great Graeme Smith, makes of all this – 17 years ago at this venue, he had declared twice, boldly risking a loss in order to try and square the series 1-1.
It ended in failure: of course it did, because he was up against a rampant Australian batting order at the peak of its powers. Ricky Ponting celebrated his 100th Test with twin tons, the second a near run-a-ball unbeaten 143 to lead the way in running down the target of 287 at nearly five an over.
Outmatched and outclassed though he and his team were by one of the greatest sides ever assembled, at least Smith had a crack. The same can’t be said of Elgar this series.
South Africa can’t sack him, though – he’s all they’ve got. At the same time, he can’t keep captaining like this.
Something, one way or another, has to give, and fast.
