“I want the guys to be ruthless. It’s a style of cricket I’m trying to develop. I want guys to follow it as well,” said South African Test captain, Dean Elgar, after South Africa won the first Test against Bangladesh by 220 runs.

South Africa played this Test match without a number of their first-choice players such as Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Aiden Markram, and Rassie van der Dussen. Although that is not an ideal situation for South Africa, it gave Elgar and the selectors the opportunity to try younger players at the international level.

“Exposing guys at this level is one way of getting that pool of depth a little bit deeper. That is an area maybe we have struggled in…we’re getting there, we’re not totally there yet. We’ve still got maybe another season or two that can reassure our minds of being 100% confident of having a big pool.”

This Test match was also memorable because South Africa played two quality spinners together in a Test match.

Elgar said: “How awesome was it to see two spin bowlers bowl in tandem and absolutely dominate the opposition, which is something we’ve always wanted to see. It was great to see both of them competing at such a high level.”

Elgar’s captaincy garnered tremendous praise throughout this Test match.

He explained: “The style of captaincy I’m trying to expose our players to just to get them familiar to the way I want to play the game of cricket, Test cricket particularly, is about playing positive, ruthless, making bold, brash decisions, and also putting players out of their comfort zones.”

Despite the comprehensive nature of South Africa’s win, the batting collapse in the second innings was cause for concern.

Although Elgar attributed some of those dismissals to inexperience at the international level, he stated categorically: “A lot of guys need to wake up and realize that Test cricket demands intensity, whether you’ve got the ball in hand or bat in hand.”

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