Proteas captain Dean Elgar says he still has the “hunger and drive” to take the team forward.
Elgar was speaking after the rain-affected third Test against Australia in Sydney was drawn.
The Proteas were bowled out for 255 in their first innings and were 106-2 in the second when play was called off with five overs still remaining.
On Sunday, Elgar was caught down the leg side for the third time in the series, for 10, to finish with 56 runs in six innings at an average of 9.33.
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“I do,” Elgar said at the post-match press conference when asked if he still had the hunger to take the team forward.
“The pressure will be off a little bit, but I enjoy the pressure. If the scoring of runs was happening now, it would be easy to say yes.
“However, you have to go into a different phase of yourself to ask those questions, which I have. I think I still definitely have the hunger and drive.”
With South Africa’s domestic 4-Day Series only set to resume on 12 February, Elgar says he will be “taking as much time off because that’s what I need at the moment”.
He added: “There will be a time at the end of January when I’ll get back to playing again because there will be games in February where we’ll be playing four-day cricket again.
“There have been a few conversations between me and the batting coaches to do extra work, but now, I just want to get on a plane and get home, chill out a bit and have a braai.
“We’ve got two games [against the West Indies in February/March] and potentially a lot of time off for myself, and potentially some county cricket.”
Elgar said he was pleased with the fight the Proteas had shown on Sunday to save the Test.
“We had a conversation with regards to how we’ll approach the day in terms of whether we were going to lie down and let the Aussies roll over us or get out and fight on day five because we knew we had a full day’s play to get in.
“It was great to see how the guys responded to that and there were a lot of learnings from that. The flip side was that we could have been done by lunch, but that wouldn’t have sat well in our camp.
“It was great to see how the guys responded in terms of our conversation and put it into practice today.”
Elgar admitted the Proteas had been “hurt and embarrassed” during the series, although the Sydney result had eased some of that pain.
“Hurt and embarrassed work hand in hand at the moment. It may be a little bit less now, especially after the second game [in Melbourne], as after that match, those words would have been a bit stronger.
“After showing some fight and a lot of positive signs in this game, it is sitting a lot better with me, and I think I’ve had time to take in the hurt and the embarrassment.
“You also have to be honest because emotion is also part of our DNA as human beings and we’re allowed to show that.”
