Proteas captain Dean Elgar has suggested that the team’s batting frailties stem from a lack of Test experience from within the line-up.

It was South Africa’s batting that had quite clearly been a pitfall in their 2-1 series defeat against England, which concluded early on Monday after the hosts won by a comfortable nine wickets.

The visitors were bowled out for 118 and 169 in their two innings respectively. Granted, the wicket seemed to have drastically favoured the bowlers, on both sides.

But the second Test defeat was even worse, with SA losing by an innings and 85 runs, courtesy of lowly totals of 151 and 179 respectively.  

Without being able to conjure up a total of more than 200 in their last four innings, the problems in SA’s batting standards have unsurprisingly come under scrutiny… and Elgar wasn’t going to deny that.

“I always bank on experience and I know we don’t have that at Test level,” he said, “so my next best thing is who we have with experience in first-class cricket. 

“Is that the right solution? We don’t know yet. We still have a few months before our next series and we’ve only got a handful of 4-day games before we leave for Australia,” he said, referring to their outgoing three-Test tour of Australia in December.

“It’s a tough thing because the guys have to learn the toughest format without a lot of experience around them, which is always something we were aware of due to the amount of guys who’ve retired [in recent years] back-to-back.

“But again, those are the cards we were dealt with and we’ve got to find a way to ease the blow for us.”

The 35-year-old wasn’t wrong, since only one or two Proteas players from this losing squad had played Test cricket in England before, so the notion of inexperience is justified.

“Coming to England, you’re always going to be exposed to tough conditions – if the weather’s on the bowler’s side and if the wickets are a little bit sporty, you’re always going to be exposed by their bowling attack.

“I’m looking for experienced heads now from a first-class point-of-view, guys who’ve really scored a lot of runs back home and try to find a means with that kind of thinking.”

Elgar admitted that he, himself, had struggled to get going in this series, racking up scores of 47, 12, 11, 1 and 36 in SA’s five innings respectively, averaging a below-par 21.40, which, to his overall Test average of 39.10, was substandard.

“We were exposed to some of the toughest batting conditions throughout this Test, especially when the ball was nipping quite a lot. It was up there with some of the toughest conditions, even for myself and I’ve got a relatively decent amount of experience.

“So I can only imagine how the guys who’ve only one or two Tests under their belts must feel. It was tough all-round.”