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The day started well for India with KL Rahul adding some more runs and their tail hanging around. They now had to come up against the outside edge of Dean Elgar’s bat - the most dangerous outside edge in the world. It was Elgar who punished an Indian attack who were a little too short in these conditions. David Bedingham also did very well on his debut. South Africa were ahead in the game for almost the entire day, but India got another couple of wickets in the last half an hour to make the game more interestingly poised.
KL Rahul’s batting on the road (SAK)
KL Rahul now has seven out of his eight Test hundreds away from India, six outside Asia, and five in South Africa, England and Australia. The variety of conditions he’s scored tons in makes for an intriguing resume.
This is his average outside Asia in different phases of his career. He started off well with those hundreds in SCG and Kingston. He struggled a fair bit in 2018-19, which was probably the peak wobble ball era. And since his comeback to the Test side against England in August 2021, he’s actually been doing pretty well in the last 3 years. The ultimate utility player for India.
This shows two things. I think they bowled a little too short to him. He gets on top of the pace and can score through the off-side quite easily. You’d be better off bowling at a back-of-length to him. Also, every time the ball was outside this area, he had a go. He had a very clear game plan that many other batters probably didn’t have for this wicket.
Dean Elgar (SAK)
Around 2017, I thought if Dean Elgar kept going, he would end up as a top 25 Test opener of all time. After that, the wobble seam becomes more prominent and the opening batters struggle more against them.
Shoutout to Gibbs, who had a very good career as an opener. But South Africa wasn’t really known for top-order players historically. Elgar is 4th on this list, which I didn’t expect.
He’s done pretty well against some of the relatively weaker attacks. Obviously, he hasn’t been as good against stronger attacks but his record against India and New Zealand is pretty impressive.
He’s a massive home batter. His away record doesn't make sense to me because he’s got such a defensive, squidgy nature of batting and how he goes about things. But the difference here is very noticeable.
This is him compared to the other top-order batters in the matches he played at home. He’s averaging almost 20 more than the opposition's top six batters, which shows how well-suited he is to bat in these conditions.
However, Dean Elgar hasn’t been particularly good in the last couple of years except against India. So you can’t really compare his scenario with de Villiers and de Kock. But he might be thinking of playing County cricket for another 4-5 years and making roughly the same money without the pressure of international cricket.
He’s been very good against India at home, but not as good away. I think the Indian think tank waited a little too long before bringing on Ashwin against him. I would have liked to see Ashwin with the newer ball to try and skid one through Elgar.
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