Faf du Plessis and Dean Elgar gave an exciting glance of what the future of South African cricket holds on the second day of the Sunfoil Test match against New Zealand at Axxess St George\u2019s in Port Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
The pair, both in the infancy of their Test careers, batted with the maturity and fluency of established cricketers, as the Proteas posted their highest Test score of 525 for eight declared on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis, who became the second South African behind Graeme Pollock to score two centuries in his first four Tests, continues to impress in the longest format, but remains humble in his success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that it\u2019s a good time for me,\u201d du Plessis said about his form. \u201cI need to score as many runs as possible because there will come a time where you don\u2019t score as many runs. I\u2019m in some good form so I have to make the most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Du Plessis has credited the Proteas\u2019 top four for the stability and consistency they have created for the rest of the order, with the line-up boasting two century stands and two over fifty in the first innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have only played a handful of Tests but there hasn\u2019t been an instance where we have been 10 for four and I have had to come in to bat,\u201d he said. \u201cThey do give you that consistency where they bat for a while and put a decent score on the board.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows you to come in and play your own game,\u201d he added. \u201cThat is important especially for a younger player or someone new to Test cricket, you don\u2019t always come in under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elgar, in contrast, has had an indifferent start to International cricket, debuting with a pair against Australia and following up with a scratchy 21 in the first Test at Sahara Park Newlands last week.<\/p>\n
He has put in countless big performances for the Chevrolet Knights and the respective South Africa A sides, and says it was a \u201crelief\u201d to score a century.<\/p>\n
\u201cCredit to Graeme (Smith) for giving me the opportunity to get to my hundred after tea,\u201d an excited Elgar said. \u201cI can\u2019t really remember the celebrations but I was quite relieved to get to the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both players are products of Cricket South Africa\u2019s development pipeline, having risen through the ranks from South Africa under-19 to the Proteas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Faf du Plessis and Dean Elgar gave an exciting glance of what the future of South African cricket holds on the second day of the Sunfoil Test match against New Zealand at Axxess St George\u2019s in Port Elizabeth. The pair, both in the infancy of their Test careers, batted with the maturity and fluency of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-17322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}