I think they were put in an unavoidable situation: Elgar on South Africa's IPL bound players

After losing the ODI series convincingly by 2-1 to Bangladesh, South Africa are restabilizing itself to face the Tigers in the upcoming Test series starting from 31st March in Durban. However, it will not be a walk in the park for the hosts as they will be missing some of their key players due to IPL commitment. Although the IPL preference of those players over the Test series wasn't received well initially, the Proteas captain Dean Elgar has now admitted to being satisfied with their response to his queries regarding this matter after communicating with them. 

"I'm comfortable where I sit with the players who aren't here. I've had some really good, in detail chats with those players to find out where they are mentally. I'm very comfortable with the answers they've given me," Elgar said. 

To maintain its good relationship with the BCCI, Cricket South Africa had let those players choose between the IPL and Bangladesh Tests despite being capable of insisting that they fulfil international commitment if needed, as per its MoU with the South African Cricketers' Association. According to Elgar, this move by CSA put the players in an unavoidable situation, and they preferred IPL as they didn't want to miss the golden opportunity of getting exposure to the most successful T20 league.  

"I think they were put in an unavoidable situation, bearing in mind that quite a few of the guys have never had IPL experience before. So I don't think they wanted to hurt their opportunity in the future in the competition," the Proteas captain said. 

Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Aiden Markram, Anrich Nortje and Rassie Van der Dussen have ruled themselves out of the Bangladesh Tests to participate in the IPL. Consequently, the Proteas side, especially their pace attack, is going to be an inexperienced one. Reacting to this, Elgar assured that he has belief in the young players and wants them to treat this as a golden opportunity to stamp their authority in international cricket. 

"We have to make do with our next best in the country, which I'm still very confident in", Elgar said. "It's a great opportunity for those guys to stand up and put those other players under pressure. I'm confident they can do that," he added. 

The South African captain also emphasized winning the first game of the series, as losing it made them work much harder to bounce back against India and New Zealand recently.   

"We need to find a way not to start poorly because that really sets us back. But, on the other hand, if we start well, we're going to win more series because it seems we play more competitive test cricket as the series goes on," the Proteas Test skipper concluded.