Dean Elgar | A sense of emancipation and a touch of enterprise

Dean Elgar leads South Africa in his farewell Test, after a career of 84 Tests & a brilliant 185 in the first Test.

Dean Elgar will walk out for toss with Rohit Sharma at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town on Wednesday morning.

He wasn’t expected to do that. Temba Bavuma was, but he got injured.

Elgar went on to play one of the most fluent Test innings of the year. He wasn’t expected to do that. He was expected to grind.

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After making a pair on Test debut, he wasn’t expected to sledge the Australian captain Michael Clarke, either.

That was in 2012. Elgar may have failed with the bat, but South Africa won the Test at Perth by 309 runs. He hadn’t opened, and came in at No. 6, in fact.

It was in 2014 that he opened in a Test match for the first time, against Australia at Port Elizabeth, alongside Graeme Smith. He made 83 in his first Test innings as an opener; he had found his place in the formidable South African batting order (Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, A.B. de Villiers, Quinton de Kock).