Dean Elgar saddened by decline of Test cricket in SA

On the eve of his 86th and final Test match Dean Elgar said he was ldquosadrdquo South Africa would be sending a weakened team to play two Test matches in New Zealand in MarchldquoThe situation wersquove been put in is not idealrdquo Elgar said on Tuesday on the eve of the second Test against India at Newlands where he will captain South Africa in his last match before retiring from international cricketOnly two of the players who won the first Test by an innings last week will be travelling to New Zealandmdashthe result of a decision by Cricket South Africa to prioritise the SA20 franchise competition ldquoIrrespective of what has happened behind the scenes there is still a lot of hunger for Test cricket from the guys who are playingrdquo he saidElgar said the positive from the situation was that it was an opportunity ldquofor the guys going to New Zealand to put in performances and to eventually become regular members of the squadrdquoAlso ReadCape of hopeBut he quickly said the decision to put the Twenty20 league ahead of Tests had nothing to do with the players ldquoWhat happens behind the scenes is totally out of our control Itrsquos out of our hands the coachesrsquo hands the team managementrsquos handsrdquo said the 36yearold ldquoItrsquos sad that itrsquos gone in that direction As players we donrsquot have control over that we have to focus on what we can focus onrdquoElgar said it was up to cricketrsquos administrators ldquoto make the right decisions for players and the longevity of our format especially our Test format Itrsquos up to players to go out and win and show the hunger for this format As long as Irsquom around Irsquom going to be a Test fanatic and I think a lot of our guys are Test fanaticsrdquoElgar said he hoped young players would get the opportunities to have the experiences he had in 12 years of Test cricket ldquoWe can fight and promote the format as much as you can but itrsquos up to the guys who count the beans Hopefully there will be a bit of sanity in the decisions for our players going forwardrdquo he saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever