The Proteas came in for criticism as the team decided against extending the third Test against England after weather and the death of Queen Elizabeth had shaved two full days of play off, and again when they slumped to defeat inside three days when the match resumed.
The circumstances they found themselves thrust into were exceptional and a picture has been painted of a team that is mentally weak and devoid of an elite athlete mentality which is wholly unfair.
For many of those players it came down to a choice between an extra day of cricket and an extra day with family amidst a hectic schedule that is only set to get tougher as things go on this year.
We don’t need to conflate defeat in the sporting arena with some grand moral failing.
The Proteas lost to a highly-motivated and talented England side who were riding a wave of emotion and playing at home.
There will be plenty of lessons for the Proteas in that defeat and probing questions must be asked of the top order batters yet again.
On the back of a tough and short series that ended in defeat, Dean Elgar took some time to reflect on the loss and how the Proteas will rebuild for the future 💬#ENGvSA
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) September 13, 2022
Each individual in the team can only do so much and can only shoulder so much of the blame, but it seems that skipper Dean Elgar is a favourite target for armchair critics.
What Elgar should or shouldn’t have done on this tour makes for a great debate but it is unlikely to yield much for the man himself or his team.
Elgar is attempting to make this team operate in his image as it were but one disappointing Test doesn’t render his efforts a failure.
When he took charge of this team it was faltering and had lost its core of experienced players and now they are in the top two of the World Test Championship and on course to contest the final.
It’s easy to lose sight of that progress when looking at that third Test in isolation but criticism really needs to be tempered by reality and in the age of social media players are more than ever better off taking it with a pinch of salt.
