Elgar joins Haynes in carrying-the-bat honours board

Dean Elgar is making a habit of batting through innings while all his other teammates lose their wickets. He has carried his bat three times now in a career of 48 Tests, and all three instances have occurred in his last 27 Tests. The two most recent instances, in fact, have come in his last four four Tests. He has already equalled Desmond Haynes for the record of carrying the bat most times in Tests. Haynes also did it three times, between 1986 and 1993. Bill Woodfull, Len Hutton, Bill Lawry and Glenn Turner are the others to achieve the feat twice in their careers, and none of them did it in the same year or season. Elgar has pulled it off twice in this home season alone. The first time Elgar carried his bat was against England in the Boxing Day Test of 2015 in Durban, then in the Johannesburg Test against India earlier this season, and now against Australia in Cape Town.

Three of the five most recent instances of batsmen carrying their bat in Tests are by Elgar, with Kraigg Brathwaite and Alastair Cook the other two. For South Africa, no batsman has carried the bat multiple times. Before Elgar, the only South Africa player to achieve this post-readmission was Gary Kirsten against Pakistan in Faisalabad in 1997-98. All other South Africa players combined have carried the bat only five times.

Elgar is only the third batsman to have carried his bat in a Test innings against Australia since 1980. The last one was Cook during his mammoth 244 not out in the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in the 2017-18 Ashes. The one before him was Chris Gayle in Adelaide in 2009-10. Elgar is overall the eighth batsman to achieve this against Australia and the second South Africa batsman after Trevor Goddard in 1957-58.

Batsmen carrying their bat has become a more frequent occurrence of late. Since mid-2015, there have been six such instances, of which three are by Elgar. There was no such instance from 2012 to 2014, while there were three in 2011 alone. There were seven such instances between 2008 and 2011 and none in the five years prior to that. The 1990s had the most occasions of batsmen carrying their bat - 12. Elgar is ruling the decade of the 2010s with his habit of carrying the bat - how many more times will he achieve the feat?

Morne Morkel became the fifth South Africa bowler to reach 300 Test wickets. Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn were the first four to enter the 300 club. Morkel has reached the milestone in his 85th Test, which makes him the slowest of the five South Africa bowlers to get there. Overall, he is the fourth slowest to the landmark behind Daniel Vettori (94 Tests), Chaminda Vaas (90) and Zaheer Khan (89).

Morkel is playing his final series but has been in great form recently. In the current 2017-18 home season, he is averaging 19.07, which is his best average in any home Test season. He has picked up 28 wickets in seven Tests, striking at 40.1 balls per wicket. Before this, he had never averaged below 20 in a home season. He has taken 27 Tests to go from 200 to 300 wickets while his first and second sets of 100 came in 29 Tests each.