IND beat SA: The batters may have let South Africa down and allowed India to breach the Centurion fortress, but skipper Dean Elgar on Thursday vowed to bounce back in the second Test in Johannesburg, saying they will not be short on confidence.
The Indian pace attack comprising Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj was at its sizzling best as South Africa were bowled out for 197 and 191 in their two innings to suffer a 113-run defeat in the first Test.
IND beat SA: Despite crushing defeat in 1st Test, Dean Elgar says ‘Won’t lack in confidence going into Johannesburg Test’
IND beat SA: “I don’t think we are going to lack any confidence going into Jo’burg. It’s never nice losing a game especially when we know we actually went wrong. And it’s difficult to correct those wrongs during a game,” the skipper said at the post-match media interaction.
“Hopefully building up to the Wanderers second Test we’re going to have some time to reflect and learn around what’s happened.”
This was South Africa’s first Test in six months in a year when they have played just six matches under Elgar, after Australia opted not to travel for a four-Test series in March.
Elgar started his journey with a 2-0 win over the West Indies before this loss against India.
“I don’t think it’s going to change our confidence going forward. We still have had a relatively good run in the last six months, so we got to utilise those kinds of good energies we’ve had.
“So yeah, we definitely are going to sit down and break up the game and as a group, we’re going to definitely come back on. It’s kind of what I expect our guys to be doing anyways,” the 34-year-old said.
The hosts were up against it after losing the toss and seeing India reach 270/3 at stumps on day one following KL Rahul’s majestic century.
“They scored over 300 which is always going to be a massive plus point for them winning the toss. It lies in the run scored obviously throughout the four days of play.
“There’s a lot of learning points for us. The basics of the game still applies. I don’t think we had that with regards to the batting point of view.
IND beat SA: Despite crushing defeat in 1st Test, Dean Elgar says ‘Won’t lack in confidence going into Johannesburg Test’
“Day one we started reasonably okay and then we we let it go and the run rate was a little bit too hard for us to try and manage and bring down again.
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