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As a tough, nugget left-hander with a proud testing record, Dean Elgar fits the bill for Essex as they head into the 2024 season with a huge void at the top of the order where Alastair Cook once resided.
Elgar’s arrival at Chelmsford, on a three-year contract, is a loss for South Africa, or at least it is, given that his fighting qualities were still fully demonstrated when, as captain, he fired off a winning 185 against India in their match. penultimate match. Test appearance on the Centurion, only 3 months ago.
But, Elgar says, with the political tension growing within Cricket South Africa, he already knew “things were on the wall” for his overseas career when he announced that this race in India would be his last, adding that his country’s inexorable drift is spiralling upwards. out. Red ball cricket had led to him being “wasted as a user and as a cricketer”.
“I already made the resolution last February [2023] to retire at the end of the Indian series,” Elgar said. “A long time ago I made a resolution about the future of my long career or what it would be like at home. .
“It may not be as rosy as it deserves to be, but I think after serving the Proteas for 12 years, maybe I’ve had that respect for what my career is going to look like. “
Most of Elgar’s career change, he says, came through Essex-based South African Simon Harmer, who had sensed his captain’s discontent amid political bickering and set about preparing for a fresh start.
“Harmy and I have known each other for over 15 years,” Elgar said. “Obviously, we were also teammates at home when he was part of the Proteas team. And the total verbal exchange happened when we were eating a braai at my house. .
“For me, it’s a direct line of communication. When he heard the prospect of my retirement, he brought it to Essex and talked to the powers that be about what my plans looked like. It was simply a simple and direct verbal exchange with him.
“When I was a young professional cricketer, I had the idea of ending my career playing county cricket. I have a British passport (my mum and brother live in Sussex), so it was anything I was looking to do. “
In fact, the prospect of Elgar’s arrival had been in the works for so long that he was hoping to open the club with Cook in the first place, rather than having to put himself in his place. Instead, Cook quietly retired at the end of the race. 2023 season, taking with him a first-class haul of 26,643 races, adding up to 11,337 with 45. 16 in two decades at Essex.
“Fighting alongside Chef would have been a dream, but to say that he has the right to make his own decisions and rightly so,” Elgar said. “I can’t play like him. I mean, he’s a “sir. “for a reason. Rightly and deservedly, but if I can get him 80 per cent closer to what he did, I think Essex cricket would be in the right place. “
Still, Elgar finds it hard not to look back with some bitterness on his departure from South Africa, especially considering the cases of the country’s only upcoming series since his retirement. With the SA20 a priority in the domestic season, a seven-time debutant team, which featured new captain Neil Brand, was sent to New Zealand in February, where they suffered two non-competitive defeats.
“I don’t think I want to elaborate on that, because it was pretty crap,” Elgar said. South Africa’s next test program is an excursion to the West Indies in July, when Major League Cricket is very likely to encroach on the team’s availability. , and Sri Lanka and Pakistan due to make a stopover next year, the team lately has no home test matches scheduled between January 2025 and September 2026.
“I need to play and challenge myself at the highest level, but we didn’t have enough test matches and that’s when I felt like I was really lost as a user and as a crictier,” Elgar said.
“I saw the writing on the wall a year ago. It has nothing to do with SA20, I think it’s a great SA cricket tournament for us, because I know it makes a lot of money. Unfortunately, this removes us from our external obligations. And it’s a balancing act between what managers want.
“I’m an administrator, I’m a player. I know what I need as a player. But I’ve also been part of the South African formula long enough to get a sense of where things are going.
“I’ve missed cricket a lot in recent years, starting with the Covid era. And in the future, it looks like there won’t be much competition in that regard. So, for me, the next most productive one is this one.
“Like I said, I wanted to finish my career playing county cricket. And while I’m at it, I need to win trophies. I play cricket to win. I was born a winner. I don’t play that game. Be a stopgap remedy. measure. “
To this end, Elgar joins a club that, for 4 seasons until the summer of Covid 2020 and counted, was rightly regarded as the most productive redball team in the country. Surrey has since won that crown, along with a few other of its stars. But Elgar is convinced, thanks to his previous five spells with Somerset and Surrey, dating back to 2013, that he has what it takes to reach the highest standards.
“April and May are not the easiest time to play cricket, it’s a bloodless game and in one day you can have a four-season atmosphere. I can’t promise races. I can only promise that, in my opinion, the procedure works. “situations, and luckily I was exposed to those situations early in my career, so I can depend on this reference for me, it’s not unusual.
“I have an idea that county cricket was the toughest four-day cricket in the world. It’s not just cricket, it’s the way of life. Some guys come here and have to do laundry for the first time. time. If you clean your house, you’ll have to fight the weather. There will be times when it will be pretty bad.
“But the great thing about four-day cricket is that you have to find a way to make it work and find the most productive intellectual area to win that moment. “