Cape Town [South Africa], January 4 (ANI): India skipper Rohit Sharma had some special words in store for his counterpart Dean Elgar who played his final game of his international career during the visitors’ seven-wicket victory against South Africa on Thursday.
Elgar brought down the curtains to his international career following the conclusion of the two-match Test series between India and South Africa. In his farewell series, he scored a remarkable 185 in the first Test which laid the foundation of South Africa’s thumping victory by an innings and 32 runs.
After the game, Rohit sang praises of Elgar and said, “Such an important player for South Africa, what he’s done throughout his career for South Africa, only few have done that. Very gritty. His wicket – we only spoke about how we want to get him out quickly. For someone to have a career like that, we do appreciate it, all of us. I’d like to wish him the best for the future. You don’t get to see a player like that every now and then. Brilliant career, best wishes ahead.”
After the first Test loss, Rohit stated that the bowlers needed to step up rather than relying on one bowler. The pace combination of Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah and Mukesh Kumar stepped up to inspire India to their first Test victory in Cape Town.
He praised the pacers for their remarkable effort with the red ball in hand and said, “(On Siraj) Very very special, something that you don’t get to see quite often, a spell like that. We spoke about keeping things very simple, because the pitch will do the rest for us and that’s exactly what happened. Lot of credit to Siraj, Bumrah and Mukesh and Prasidh as well who supported them in whatever way they could. Whenever you come to this part of this world, it’s always challenging.”
Rohit complimented the team for the success that they have achieved in the past tours and said, “In the last 4-5 years, we have become a very good travelling team. We’ve played a lot of good cricket outside India, we take a lot of pride in performance outside India. We would have liked to win the series. You cannot get everything. South Africa is a great team, they always challenge us, that’s probably the reason we have not won a series. They are such a good cricket team. To come and win like this, we can take a lot of pride from this performance.” (ANI)
