“I have a lot of shoes to fill,” Tony de Zorzi said of the difficult challenge of replacing Dean Elgar as the new Proteas opener

Tony de Zorzi, a top-order batsman for South Africa, talked about the unusual duty of opening the batting before the two-match Test series against the West Indies.

Only seven times has the southpaw batted in Test cricket, all at the one-drop position behind Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar. Elgar, who retired after the two-match series against India earlier this year, was lauded by the Southpaw. Elgar’s incredible skill in cricket was praised by De Zorzi, who called him a “unbelievable” player.

“I have large shoes to fill. De Zorzi stated, “The guy before me was unbelievable,” according to an audio recording made public by Cricket South Africa.

In the four first-class games in which he and Markram were both in the starting lineup, De Zorzi, who played with the Titans from October 2017 to January 2020 with Markram and Elgar, never took up the opening role. He has, nevertheless, collaborated closely with Markram in several settings.

De Zorzi said that playing the opening role would be an exciting opportunity to work with a familiar face like Markram on the opposite end.

“So, to be batting with Aiden will be quite exciting. The fact that it’s a well-known face is awesome,” de Zorzi said.

Because this is my first overseas tour, I want to do well: Tony de Zorzi

It’s interesting to note that the aggressive batter has only played in South Africa for his international matches. However, he hinted that he had a gut feeling about the tactics West Indies would use to get rid of him and mentioned that he had been working hard to prepare retaliation. Since the upcoming tour would be his first abroad, he also stated that he is currently getting used to the new environment.

“Having faced them in a game previously, I know what their players will attempt to do to try to pull me out. I’m therefore rehearsing how I would respond to it, concentrating on my strong points, and making sure I can stick around for extended periods of time. I have made every effort to adjust to the intensity. I want to do well because this is my first overseas trip,” de Zorzi continued.

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Indeed, the responsibility of assuming Elgar’s mantle will be a major undertaking. He scored 5347 runs at a respectable average of 37.92 for the Proteas over the course of 86 matches, including 23 fifties and 14 hundreds. How well this intriguing proposition performs in comparison to the Caribbean is still to be determined.