Tough guy Elgar turns artist as Proteas take lead against India

Dean Elgar’s ninth four took him from 41 to 45. It was the shot of an artist — except Elgar isn’t what you picture when you think of batting as an art.

Elgar is about grit, toughness — he’s what is affectionately called in South Africa a “hardeg*t” (hard-**s to give the literal translation).

“Dean epitomises what a South African cricketer and even a person is about: resilience, dogfight, pride in performance and the ability to never back down,” Proteas head coach Shukri Conrad said on the eve of this opening Test against India.

The aesthetics of batting never seemed to matter to Dean Elgar. Time at the crease and runs on the board did.

His best knocks have never been defined by beauty, unless you find the sadistic attractive — a bloodied finger at The Oval in 2017; bruised hip, chest and shoulder in that same innings; thundering cut strokes or booming pull shots.

His ninth four was not one of those. Here Elgar unleashed a classic thing, a “hang it in the Louvre” picture-perfect, coach-drooling, crowd-oohing cover drive. Elbow high, front foot to the ball, the full face of the bat greeting the red, leather-wrapped orb and caressing it all along a lush green outfield to the cover boundary. 

It needed a second look to make sure it was Elgar who played it, but it was him, in his penultimate Test, showing that blood and guts were but one part of his Test makeup. He could do art. 

It was a much-needed innings too, as so many of his 14 Test centuries have been for the Proteas. The conditions all the second day of the first Test in Centurion were not easy for batting. Heavy cloud cover, cool temperatures and a pitch still with a healthy grass covering.

The ball beat the edge numerous times. Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj, India’s two best bowlers, used the conditions beautifully too — Siraj’s dismissal of Aiden Markram came with a peach that gave the Proteas opener no chance. 

If Elgar had chosen the “let's tough it out” approach, you wouldn’t have questioned him and it would have been fitting too, given the circumstances of the series for him. 

Instead he flowed — to balls pitched up he drove firmly down the ground, any width was crunched square on the offside, anything to straight firmly dispatched through midwicket. 

The ninth four was anything but a bad ball from Shardul Thakur — he did bowl several others that were — but it spoke to Elgar’s intent and the importance of taking advantage on a surface where bowlers could easily extract something unplayable. 

His 19th four brought up his hundred, a landmark he celebrated with vein-throbbing enthusiasm, nearly breaking the arm of batting partner at the time, the impressive David Bedingham, as he accepted his congratulations.

Elgar had only once hit more fours in reaching a Test hundred, but that innings in Dunedin in 2017 saw him face 197 balls. Here he faced just 140 deliveries for an impressive strike rate of 72.14.

Once more bad light stopped play, with 21 overs still scheduled to be played, but Elgar shone brightly, raising his bat as he left the field, unbeaten on 140, having batted 307 minutes already, with more to come on Thursday. 

South Africa will need it, too. Their lead is just nine runs, but having reached 254/5 they will be pleased at how they played, particularly younger batters like Tony de Zorzi, who showed composure and Elgar-like grit in making 28, sharing a 93-run second-wicket stand with the opener and then the debutant Bedingham, who made a classy 56. 

Bedinghman is certainly going to entertain for many years. His innings was dotted with exquisitely timed drives off front and back foot, and one wristy flick off Bumrah was arguably the second-best shot of the day. 

The best belonged to Elgar.

TimesLIVE