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His record in the tournament, for four teams, has been middling, but on the back of his recent success as a hitter and finisher, he’s looking to change that with RCB

Matt Roller23-Mar-2021Dan Christian’s most recent IPL game was a stinker. Brought into the Delhi Daredevils side after two weeks on the bench, he managed 7 not out off nine balls from No. 7, strangled by the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s pace-off options. In the chase, the Sunrisers needed 14 to win at the start of the final over. Christian was whacked for a six and a four by Yusuf Pathan, finishing with figures of 0 for 37 as the game was lost with a ball to spare. He was promptly dropped, and at 35 it seemed as though his unfulfilled IPL career had come to a subdued end.Three years later Christian is back, with success on the global short-form circuit under his belt – including four trophies. He was signed for Rs 4.8 crore (US$657,000 approx) by the Royal Challengers Bangalore in last month’s IPL auction and is looking to add a tenth title to his T20 trophy cabinet.The reason Christian is coveted is simple: he remains one of the best in the world at hitting boundaries at the end of an innings. Since the 2018 IPL final, only Kieron Pollard has scored more runs at the death than Christian around the world, and Christian’s strike rate in the last four overs – 192.69 – puts him in the same bracket as T20’s elite death-over hitters. Throw in the fact that he offers teams a sixth bowling option, the experience of 347 games – including nine wins in finals – and it is obvious why teams like what he brings them.”I’ve no doubt that I’m a better player than when I first played in the IPL – or when I’ve ever played in it,” Christian says from the UAE, where he is preparing for the season with Ben Cutting and Chris Lynn, following the postponement of the second half of the PSL. “I just feel like I’m a really good place with my game.ESPNcricinfo Ltd”I’m confident in what I’m trying to do when I’m out there, and from a batting perspective I’m really happy with how things are going. I just feel confident and comfortable in the role I’m playing in every side. All I’m really thinking about these days is just trying to win, so whatever a team needs at a certain time, I’m going out trying to do that.”The roots of Christian’s late-career flourish can be found in the end of his red-ball career. He lost his state contract with Victoria in early 2018, when he was phased out in favour of younger alternatives, and the result has been the opportunity to focus solely on his T20 skills – and in particular, his six-hitting swing.”It turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise, really,” he says. “I got the opportunity to play a few more tournaments and it’s worked out pretty well in the end. I think that the grounding that I got from playing four-day cricket is the majority of the reason that I’m still having some success, but being able to focus my training on T20 skills has helped me quite a lot.”It’s been about five years now of just playing this specific role: it doesn’t really matter where I am in the order, but I’ve been coming in around about the 10th-12th over mark – sometimes a little bit later, depending on which team I’m in – and playing that finishing role with the bat. I’ve been able to specifically train for that. With that grounding, you work out how to do it and what you need to do at what time.Specific training is not always straightforward when you live a nomadic, contract-to-contract lifestyle, but Christian has found a home away from home at Nottinghamshire. Since signing as a replacement for Daren Sammy midway through the 2015 T20 Blast, he has been a key part of the side’s short-form success, and has captained them since 2016.Christian sets specific scenarios for himself to bat to at practice•Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty ImagesAs a result, Paul Franks and Peter Moores, the club’s assistant coach and head coach respectively, have been key influences. “Those two are the ones that have probably helped me the most,” Christian says. “Generally if I’m playing in another competition and I feel like I need to talk to someone about something, they’re the two that I’d go to.”I do a little bit of scenario stuff, where I’ll set up little games, with a coach who will be throwing balls or using the flingers, and I’ll need x off however many balls. But the main things I do are specific nets, where I’m facing bowlers and treating it like a one-day game – trying not to face any dots, knocking ones around, and then occasionally hitting a boundary. And then separate throwdowns or bowling-machine stuff, where I’m working on grooving my six-hitting swing and trying to hit the ball as far as I can while making sure that my shapes are still good.”I’ve done a lot of research and watched a lot of videos of baseballers and golfers and how they generate their power to help me with that. My personal opinion is that batting at the end, you almost need a completely different swing – a slogging swing – to what you do when you’re batting normally.”Golf has been of particular help for Christian, who plays off a handicap of three. “Watch the way a golfer swings and the way they use the lower part of their body to generate that power, driving up out of the ground – and the way their body coils before they release and then swing through the ball. I’ve tried to bring in a bit of that, just to help with that power.”I know it’s a completely different game – stationary ball versus a moving ball, and the fact there are so many other variables involved with batting – but there are some common themes with the way that you swing. I play a lot of golf – clubs are the first thing I’d pack going on a trip somewhere – and it’s certainly helped me with the general mechanics of it.”Christian was the Player of the Match for his 4 for 23 and an unbeaten 11-ball 21 in Nottinghamshire’s win in the 2020 Vitality Blast final•Nathan Stirk/Getty ImagesThe result is that Christian arrives at the IPL feeling as though he has a real chance to improve on his own mixed record in the competition and propel RCB into the latter stages of the season. Since he was signed for Rs 4.14 crore ($900,000) by the Deccan Chargers in the 2011 auction, Christian has been a semi-regular squad player in the tournament. He feels as though he has unfinished business after the heartbreak of the 2017 final, where he played for the Rising Pune Supergiant and needed to hit the last ball of the innings for four and could only manage two. Now he’s heading back to a franchise that picked him only twice in their XI in the 2013 season.”I’m really excited to be back and hopefully to have some success – both personally, and also trying to win one. I got really close in 2017, which was pretty disappointing and the IPL is one that I’d love to add to the trophy cabinet. I’m really looking forward to being back at Bangalore too – playing under Virat [Kohli] and with AB [de Villiers], Glenn Maxwell, and playing under Simon Katich, who I played with at New South Wales years ago and have known for a long time.”Last time I was at RCB, I was on the bench for the Gayle 175 game. That was extraordinary to watch – as good a show of hitting as you’ll ever see. One of the highlights that season was playing against Mumbai and opening the bowling against [Ricky] Ponting and [Sachin] Tendulkar – two guys that I idolised growing up, and two legends of the game.”I’ve made a bit of a joke on my social media recently that whenever I’ve won something, I put a caption saying ‘That’s why you play’, but it’s the truth. When you’re a kid and you first do something, you want to win – that’s where it all comes from. As your professional career ebbs and flows, you have other [goals] that might sometimes cloud that, but as you get older, you go full circle and go back to thinking about how you started, which for me was always that competitiveness of trying to win.”Girish TS/ESPNcricinfo LtdChristian is not an automatic starter for RCB, with Maxwell, de Villiers, and big-money recruit Kyle Jamieson set to fill three of their four overseas slots for the majority of the season. But as he completes yet another period of quarantine – he has spent more than a month in mandatory self-isolation over the last year travelling for tournaments, playing online chess to kill time – he may reflect that any success he has in Indian conditions could help him press a case for an international recall.For all Christian’s experience as a short-format globetrotter, he has faced a paltry 28 balls in a T20I career spanning seven years, despite the fact that since his most recent appearance, on the 2017-18 tour of India, the finishing role has been a problem position for Australia. With two T20 World Cups looming, it is not completely out of the question that he could yet make a return.”I haven’t had much opportunity with the bat for Australia at all,” he says. “When I’ve played in the past, it’s generally been as a bowling allrounder. I’d love another opportunity – obviously Australia have never won a T20 World Cup, and being part of a World Cup-winning squad is one thing I’d love to do.”I’ve kept in touch [with the selectors]. I played a lot with George Bailey, so we speak a bit, and I’ve talked to Justin Langer a little bit as well – he might send me a ‘congratulations’ text if I’ve done something well.”I think it is realistic – I’m not completely on the outer, put it that way. If I’m putting performances on the board, staying fit, and the teams I’m playing in are winning, then I’d like to think that I’m certainly a chance.”

It’s difficult to recall a more self-destructive passage of play from England than on the fifth morning of the Lord’s Test

Andrew Miller16-Aug-20214:26

Harmison: ‘England completely lost focus; Anderson can stand up for himself’

Up in the media centre during the fifth-day lunch break, the great and the good (as well as the significantly better than average) were all united in their astonishment at the malfunction they were witnessing. Phil Tufnell, for one, was struggling to recall a more self-destructive passage of play from an England team in his lifetime, and he had lived a fair few of them.But this… this was something extra special. Rarely has a match-winning position been squandered so wantonly, so pointedly, so brainlessly – as England laid down their arms in the five-day war of attrition, and chose instead to lose themselves in an irrelevant battle of wills. And, by the time Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami had backed up their extraordinary batting by picking off an opener apiece for ducks to leave England 1 for 2, it was shaping up as the most wholesale capitulation ever known.Related

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Everything that transpired on the fifth morning stemmed from the ugly but compelling events of the third evening. In the dying moments of that day, Bumrah’s ten-ball over to England’s No. 11 James Anderson, with barely a delivery in his half of the pitch and his front foot pushing the line in every sense, ignited the tinder-dry sensibilities of a rivalry that has rarely needed an excuse to get rowdy in recent years. After all, Anderson has been around long enough to remember the Trent Bridge Test of 2007, when a row over jelly beans provided India with just enough righteous indignation to make sure they had a series-sealing victory.As the players left the field, the animosity was plain. A grinning Bumrah, arms raised in a questioning fashion, as if to say to a livid Anderson: why shouldn’t I stick it up your jumper? Virat Kohli, inevitably, was in the thick of the action too, just as he would be on the resumption of his own duel with Anderson on day four, during which he informed England’s greatest bowler that “this is not your f****** backyard”. Words that, on the evidence of the bunfight that has subsequently erupted, look set to enter the annals alongside Michael Clarke’s promise to deliver Anderson a “broken f****** arm” in Brisbane in 2013-14.The point being, of course, that Anderson is old enough and ugly enough to look after himself in the international arena. He did not need his team to get emotional on his behalf. And, in fact, for the first 30 minutes of the final day’s play, England’s cricket was smart and focussed. Anderson and Ollie Robinson played the long game with the delayed new ball, challenging the dangerous Rishabh Pant to risk the first move. And though he duly did so with a familiar gallop and thwack through the covers off Anderson, Robinson did for him four balls later, with line, length, and a defensive prod to the keeper. It’s amazing what can happen when you bowl your best ball to any given batter.2:12

Where did England lose the plot against Bumrah-Shami?

By degrees, however, England lost their grip as soon as Pant had left the stage. Instead of caving in as the analytics said they would, India’s lower-order – ostensibly one of the weakest in modern Test history – signalled from the outset a refusal to play by their numbers. It took a moment of genuine cunning from Robinson (probably England’s last example of thinking cricket in the innings) to confound a feisty Ishant Sharma, a perfectly pitched knuckleball at 64mph, crashing into his front pad like a microlight with engine failure. But thereafter, their performance was entirely knuckleheaded.Foremost among England’s brain-fade was the use – or rather, misuse – of Mark Wood. Speaking to Sky Sports before the start of play, Wood confirmed that he had heard a “bit of a crack” when landing heavily on his right shoulder on the fourth evening, words that ought to have filled England’s management with untold dread, given how eviscerated their pace-bowling stocks have become since the long-term injuries to Jofra Archer and Olly Stone.Wood did not take the field at all in the first half-hour, seemingly a wise precaution, for there really was no need to change a plan that was still on course to deliver a victory target of less than 200. Instead, no sooner had he stepped on the field of play, he was back into the action – his “external” injury permitting him an immediate stint – and then, five balls into his first over, he flung himself to intercept a push from Shami and turned white with pain as he jarred the exact same shoulder. It should, by rights, have been the end of his day, there and then.Instead, the arrival of Bumrah meant all bets were off. As if his smiling visage wasn’t enough to get under England’s skin, his first act was to ask Haseeb Hameed at short leg to kneel before him and tie up his dangling shoe-lace, potentially a coincidence, but an expertly inserted length of needle either way. The first ball he faced from Wood was a bouncer – inevitably. So, too, the second. So, too, the third, as Bumrah wound into a hook, and found enough edge to get off the mark.Robinson rumbled in for another over, but despite inducing a low edge into the cordon off Shami, Joe Root was suddenly getting twitchy about the size of India’s lead. Bumrah sensed the mood, with a rasping straight drive that deflected off the non-striker’s stumps, and suddenly, that was that. No more freebies, as England’s best bowler of the morning found himself limited to a solitary wide slip, and a phalanx of boundary riders, essentially charged with keeping it tight while Wood knocked some blocks off.England had been outmatched in the mindgames every step of the day•Getty ImagesIt’s worth at this point to remember exactly who England were dealing with. The older members of the team might have had a dim and distant memory of Shami’s vague batting functionality, after he had made his only previous Test half-century at Trent Bridge in 2014 – a deck so dead that the match is now best remembered for Alastair Cook’s one and only Test wicket.But Bumrah… now he was a proper batting bunny. Statistically, if not stylistically, he had long been the closest thing to an heir to the most feckless tailender of them all, New Zealand’s Chris Martin, having made a grand total of 18 runs in his first 19 innings, including a highest score of 6, and an average of 1.80. All of a sudden, he’s harvested 62 runs in three innings on this England tour – the same, shockingly, as his captain, Kohli, and at a higher average too.It was in Wood’s third over that the mood of the match took its decisive turn. Prior to taking strike, Bumrah pulled out of his stance, gesticulating at England’s fielders, Root and Jos Buttler in particular, as Shami and umpire Michael Gough became involved too. His response was an angry hack, flat and fast through point as Kohli on the India balcony pumped his fist in approval and the lead marched into the 190s. And though Wood responded with a crushing bouncer to the side of the helmet, it was clear by this stage that such intimidation was pointless. Every ball not aimed at the stumps was an invitation for India to burgle another run, to bolster an already threatening stand, to exceed expectations that were already far beyond what they had hoped their tail could be capable of.Throughout it all, there was no sign of Anderson returning to restore order, at least, not until Root, perhaps already sensing that the moment was lost and that England’s only hope was for him to switch back into batting mode, vanished into the dressing room, presumably to run a few options through the number-crunchers. “Give it to Jimmy, dammit!” was the computer’s unsurprising verdict, but Shami greeted his third ball with a clip through midwicket that Dom Sibley could only dream of playing, before Root himself dropped Bumrah at slip off Moeen Ali, a clanger by any standards, but a head-in-hands moment that gave every snapper in the ground their 1000-word picture.And the remainder of England’s fielding effort was a fever dream. Shami slammed Ali for four and six over cow corner to march to a 57-ball fifty, and after the lunch break had passed in a will-they-won’t-they of declaration speculation, the pair got another trio of boundaries in nine balls, either side of a five-minute hiatus while Shami waited, with trousers at half-mast, for the delivery of a correct thigh pad. Again, it could have been an accident, but like Bumrah’s shoelace, there was no reason to think it wasn’t another psychological ploy. For England had been outmatched in the mindgames every step of the day. And as it turned out, their agonies were only just beginning.

A quick run-through of the problem areas that each team has had to manage so far

Karthik Krishnaswamy and Gaurav Sundararaman24-Apr-202218:30

How have IPL’s new captains fared so far?

Every team wants to cover every base with quality options: top-order and middle-order batters, allrounders, keeper-batters, spinners, and fast bowlers who can bowl in the powerplay and the death. But with the total talent pool of IPL 2022 distributed among ten teams rather than eight, it hasn’t been possible for every team to cover every base. In fact, most have had to compromise on at least one area to strengthen another. Nearly every team, in short, has at least one identifiable hole. Some have been left gaping over the first half of the season, while others have been patched up to good effect. Here’s a quick run-through of the problem areas that each team has had to manage.

The Bangladesh batter opens up about playing multiple formats, understanding the game better, the famous win in New Zealand, and more

Mohammad Isam22-Feb-2022There is a bit of swagger about Litton Das. It is there in the way he walks to the crease, tucks up his sleeves and plays some of his shots effortlessly. It is there in his fluent wicketkeeping, too. Litton always seem to have a bit of time in hand. He has carried himself gracefully off the field, mostly staying out of the limelight. However, some see all of this differently. The swagger is often misinterpreted as pride. Which is why Litton’s lean patches come under a lot of scrutiny.Regarded arguably as the best batter of his generation in Bangladesh, he is also highly rated by the seniors in the side. But Litton spent the first two years of his career promising a big knock. That came in his second coming in the Bangladesh team, and only recently, in the last 12 months, has he shown real signs of consistency, as he was Bangladesh’s leading run-getter in Tests in 2021.Related

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There was a lull in his form last year when Bangladesh focused too much on spinning tracks at home, resulting in his poor T20 World Cup. Litton was dropped as punishment during the T20I series against Pakistan, but he has come back strongly. He got a maiden century in the Tests at home, before playing a crucial match-winning knock in the Mount Maunganui Test last month. He also scored a century in the second Test in Christchurch, before helping Comilla Victorians to their third BPL title last week.His next assignment is the ODI series against Afghanistan that begins in Chattogram on Tuesday.When you talk to Litton, rather than the swagger, his clarity of thought comes through. He believes that opening the batting in ODIs requires a level of self-assessment rather than planning too far ahead.”The bigger challenge in ODIs is preparing yourself,” Litton told ESPNcricinfo. “You can dominate the bowling once you get set. You know what you are going to get batting in the top order in ODIs. Every bowler wants to hit the top of off-stump. They have a slip and a gully. They want to get you bowled, nick off or lbw. The bigger challenge is in Test cricket where you can’t play a big shot if you just wanted to. You have to survive certain phases and get out of it.”Liton however has to constantly adjust to the three formats, being one of the few Bangladeshi cricketers now who plays all the formats. With the pressure of performing, he has had to figure out exactly how to slip from one format to the next. Litton said one must understand his or her role and be prepared for every situation.”It depends on what my role is. I am a wicketkeeper who bats at No. 7 in Tests. I play predominantly as a top-order batter in ODIs. I don’t usually keep wickets, so I have to field well. I have a similar role in T20Is. There are times when I suddenly have to keep wickets, maybe after break of few months. One has to adjust very quickly.”Even the best players are faced with challenging phases in international cricket. A lot depends on how much of a comfort zone you have been able to create for yourself. If you are scoring runs continually, things are easy for you. When you are off form, international cricket can be a tough place. You will find it hard to cover such times at that level.”Liton on the victory against New Zealand last month: “We never thought we’d win in such a dominating manner”•Getty ImagesLitton is one of the three Bangladeshi cricketers who have played more than 100 international matches in the last four years. Certainly the senior quartet are in their mid-thirties, meaning the likes of Mominul Haque and Litton are having to step up from time to time in leadership positions. Mominul is the Test captain while Litton’s regularity as the wicketkeeper shows glimpses of a future full of responsibility.But Litton insists that he has always been the type who offers his advice to the captain, whether it was his debut game or now.”Didn’t I have responsibility before? I believe that there was responsibility on me when I made my debut. Even at that time, I tried to give my input from whatever knowledge I had. It is the same thing now. Some want to take on the responsibility, some don’t. It depends from person to person, but I always had responsibility.”It showed during the Test win against New Zealand in January. Litton changed the mood of the game on the third day with his stroke-filled 86. His four-hour stay at the crease took Bangladesh to the lead, but more than that, his shots started Bangladesh’s domination. Litton said that they never really thought that they could beat New Zealand, but could certainly push them all the way to the end.”It was great to start the year with such a massive achievement. We celebrated on the day we won, and now it is in the past. But I wouldn’t call it a bizarre result, but certainly we never thought we’d win against New Zealand in a dominating manner.”Our motive was to take the Test to the fifth day, since we usually lose Tests in three or three and a half days in New Zealand. We are talking about the No. 1 team in the world in their home ground, so that was always something we considered.”At this juncture of his international career, Litton doesn’t want to make any tall claims. The last seven years have made Litton realise that, despite taking a bit of time, he has improved in his understanding of cricket, particularly Tests. For now he is happy with this bit of critical progress.”I won’t say that I have reached any new levels, but I have realised that a player needs 15 to 20 Test matches to grow into the game. Maybe someone with more talent needs fewer games but I needed a bit of time to know what Test cricket truly is. A lot of situations vary. I feel I am getting better at understanding Test cricket, which I think this is the big change.”

Royal Challengers have now lost nine playoff matches, the joint-most in IPL history

Sampath Bandarupalli27-May-20224 Centuries for Jos Buttler in IPL 2022, the joint-most for any player in a T20 series or tournament. Virat Kohli also scored four centuries during the 2016 edition of the IPL.2 Players to score more runs in a T20 competition than Buttler’s 824 runs in this IPL season. (And he still has one more innings left) Kohli and David Warner scored 973 and 848 runs, respectively, in the 2016 IPL.ESPNcricinfo Ltd5 Hundreds by Buttler in the IPL, including one in 2021. He is one of three players with five or more centuries in the IPL. Kohli also has five hundreds, while Chris Gayle tops the list with six.195 Runs scored by Buttler in the playoffs this season, a new IPL record, surpassing Warner’s tally of 190 in 2016. Rajat Patidar is third on the list with 170 runs across the Eliminator and Qualifier 2.Most hundreds in IPL•ESPNcricinfo Ltd2 Buttler’s hundred is only the second in an IPL playoff match, while chasing. Shane Watson scored an unbeaten 117 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2018 final. It is also only the sixth century recorded in an IPL playoff match and the first for Rajasthan Royals.8 Hundreds in IPL 2022, including the unbeaten 106 by Buttler on Friday. This is also a new tournament record, surpassing the seven that were made in 2016.ESPNcricinfo Ltd31 Sixes conceded by Mohammed Siraj, the most by a bowler in any edition of the IPL. Wanindu Hasaranga is second (30) on this list; both Royal Challengers Bangalore bowlers going past Dwayne Bravo, who held the record previously with the 29 sixes conceded in 2018.10.07 Siraj’s economy rate this year is the worst for a bowler across IPL history (min 50 overs). Siraj is also only the third bowler to finish with an economy rate in excess of ten in any T20 tournament (Min: 300 balls).9 Playoff losses for Royal Challengers, the joint-most in the IPL. Chennai Super Kings have also lost nine playoff matches, although they played 11 more than the Bangalore franchise. Delhi Capitals have lost nine out of 11. Royal Challengers have lost 11 playoff matches in all T20s, also the joint-most defeats for a team.

Elgar at a loss for answers, as bid to avoid playing by England’s rules backfires

Firdose Moonda12-Sep-2022Lock the drinks cabinet, please. South Africa will not be having any.After the promise of a shot of tequila for every mention of Bazball, South Africa don’t want to hear it anymore. And they’re serious about being sober. “I said I am not speaking about that,” Dean Elgar said, even before the question about how he assessed England’s proactive approach had been fully asked.When it was, he answered. “I actually thought they played relatively good Test cricket. I don’t think they played extraordinary cricket. I thought they played the correct tempo. I didn’t see that B-word coming through at all.”Didn’t see, or didn’t want to see?There is no denying that England played a certain way (whether you want to give it a name or not) throughout this series, and especially in the reduced-to-three-days decider. Ben Stokes confirmed that his message to the team was to “produce a result”, because in the last Test of the summer “nobody wants to see a draw”.That isn’t entirely true. Had South Africa thought it through, they would have realised that playing for a draw, taking four points and closing the gap between themselves and Australia in the World Test Championship table would have been the prudent approach. Instead, they got swept up in the kind of hype they are not used to.South Africa may not even realise it, but they allowed England to control the narrative as their pre-series tequila jokes gave way to a selection blunder at Old Trafford and batting blow-outs not seen in more than a century at The Oval.They also revealed their limited experience in dealing with a savvy media and a boisterous public and you can’t really blame them. Before this series, South Africa had played more than two years of cricket behind either closed doors or tiny crowds, while only three of the current squad had ever played Test cricket in England before. On top of that, no-one anticipated the scale of emotion that would come after the death of Queen Elizabeth II on the first day of the final Test.Kagiso Rabada is one of a handful of South Africans with prior experience of either English or Australian conditions•Getty ImagesBut could it all really be about one silly B-word? Yes, says a man who might know better than most. “Somebody in the press box comes up with Bazball and we know what happens in the English media,” Kevin Pietersen said on Sky Sports in his post-match analysis. “The pen is mightier than the sword and Test teams, touring teams will turn up here and they’ll be thinking about Bazball. Every single player around the world will be talking about Bazball – from India, to New Zealand to Australia. The psychology pre-Ashes is already happening.”It will be the least of South Africa’s concerns as to whether they have done England a favour ahead of next year’s Ashes. Instead, they should focus on the consequences this series defeat will have on their own Test ideology going forward.In this series, they were forced to confront their middle-order shortcomings and make big changes. Rassie van der Dussen (who missed the final Test through injury but had been out of form anyway) and Aiden Markram were swapped out for Ryan Rickelton and Khaya Zondo, but it’s far too early to say whether either man can go on to be the solution South Africa are looking for. But it’s no secret that South Africa need answers, and need them quickly.”It’s a tough one when guys aren’t getting numbers on the board for you,” Elgar said. “Sooner or later, your resources are going to be depleted and we are going to have to look elsewhere. We did the right thing for this Test match. We had to use the resources we had, something different, something new, you don’t know if you don’t give them a try.”But Elgar also continued to throw his weight behind both van der Dussen and Markram, who he thinks can come again. “Aiden has still got a bright future in Test cricket,” Elgar said. “He just needs to get numbers behind his belt and go back to the drawing board. He is still too young and too talented not to be playing this level of cricket. When he gets those opportunities to play a four-day game, he’s got to nail it like he has done in the past when he was left out and he went back home and he nailed four-day cricket, scored a lot of runs and he got his opportunity again.”That is precisely the problem. Even when Markam was the top-scorer in South Africa’s first-class competition, he was not able to translate that form to Test cricket. Since 2018, Markram averages 67.50 from 10 domestic first-class matches, with five centuries. In 18 home Tests in the same period, he averages just over half that: 34.70, with only two hundreds. It’s clear that South Africa’s domestic breeding ground is not producing enough players who can make the step up and Elgar is unsure how best to address the gap.Related

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“I always bank on experience. I know we don’t have that at the Test level. My next best thing is, who do we have in first-class cricket back home, but is that the right solution? We don’t know yet,” he said. “We’ve still got a few months before our next series and we’ve only got a handful of four-day games at home before we leave to Australia. It’s a tough thing now, because the guys have to learn the toughest format without a lot of experienced heads around them, which is always something we were aware of. But those are the cards we’ve been dealt and we’ve got to find a way to ease the blow.”That upcoming assignment includes a run of Tests in Australia’s festive season for the first time since their victorious 2008-09 series. No-one in the current South African squad has any experience of playing a Test in front of a packed MCG or SCG, which will present another challenge. The same three who had experience in England – Elgar, Kagiso Rabada and Keshav Maharaj, along with Temba Bavuma – are likely to be the only players who have been part of a Test series in Australia before. The scrutiny – remember mint-gate? – will be unending. So how should South Africa avoid making the same mistakes?”We’ve been playing good cricket and we’ve been playing pretty average cricket as a squad, and we need to get that balance right,” Elgar said. “Every Test match is going to be something you have to live and die for. That three-Test match series is going to be huge. We’ve got five massive Tests before June. Even our series against West Indies, we can’t take that lightly. I need the guys to have that mentality going forward.”It sounds a little bit like the way England play, with one-pointed focus on every game as a must-win, but for Elgar’s sake, South Africa should avoid coming up with any catchphrases that define them.