'They did not recognise all my hard work' - Former captain Dean Elgar accuses Cricket South Africa of back stabbing

Former South Africa captain in Tests, Dean Elgar, revealed the hard-hitting reality of political and administration agendas maligning the team culture and environment. Not just that, as claimed by Elgar, this led to his unceremonious axing as the skipper in the purest format of the game.

While describing the challenges he had to go through in rebuilding the team, Elgar poured out his feelings about being "stabbed in the back" by none other than Cricket South Africa's (CSA) administration and the current head coach, Shukri Conrad. Notably, the 36-year-old bid adieu to his international cricket career back in January and thereafter signed a lucrative deal with the English county Essex for three years. Furthermore, reflecting on his Test career he accused Sh of cutting his Test career short just because he felt more comfortable while conversing and planning with the then South Africa captain, Temba Bavuma.

However, Dean Elgar did not step back from clarifying that despite all the odds he shared amicable relations with his former teammates along with Bavuma. Besides, the former Protea skipper also mentioned that when he took over the reins in the Test format for the 'Rainbow Nation', he got exposed to a rather 'toxic culture' back in March of 2021.

"I became a part-time cricketer and full-time politician, something that I never want to go through again. I am a sportsman, not a politician or a cricket administrator, but I was thrown into a cauldron in which I had to be all three. If I had known that before, I would never have accepted the captaincy," Elgar said in an interview with Rapport Newspaper.

"It felt as though they did not recognise all my hard work over the previous year-and-a-half, that they didn’t realise how much we had improved as a team," the 36-year-old continued.

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We became a team with the potential to play in the World Test championship final: Elgar

Continuing the discussion ahead, Dean Elgar recalled how he had worked hard and brought South Africa's Test team to the verge of playing the World Test Championship final after they started as a low-ranked team in the past. Moreover, he also recalled the time when the former legend Graeme Smith resigned as the Director of cricket in 2022 which resulted in him taking the extra baggage and burden of bringing South African cricket back on the track along with the then coach Mark Boucher and the team management.

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"From being sixth or seventh in the world we became a team with the potential to play in the World Test championship final. I tried to make the best of a bad job, to control the things I could control. But my own form took a dive," Elgar concluded.