Awkward questions linger as creaky Australia receives South African hiding

That Australia slowly folded and lost the Gqeberha Test by an innings and 31 runs late on day five was hardly surprising in light of its batting calamities of 24 hours earlier. That Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen ran through the tail to finish things off even less so.

But it remains startling to consider the reversal of fortunes this quite disastrous loss represented for Australia. On day two, they were 1-0 up in the series, had South Africa on the ropes at 5-97, on a greenish pitch, and fancied a rout of their own.

Instead, in a game that lost 145 overs to rain and associated delays, the annihilation took place in reverse and a series some considered Australia's stepping stone to more difficult engagements ahead is now set for an enticing decider. For Australia, the task ahead is now daunting on multiple levels — not just to find form and the right combination of players to defeat an ascendant and cohesive opponent, but how to do so in Cape Town, with all the extra heat that will entail.

First the few positives. Travis Head, whose role as opener will continue to be endlessly scrutinised, laboured unselfishly for five hours to make 121. Nightwatchman Scott Boland, who was Australia's best all-round performer of the game, absorbed 187 deliveries for his rearguard 40.

The negatives? Australia's next-best batsman was Mother Nature, who wiped out the first session of play and briefly raised hopes that Australia would force a draw. It didn't, for neither did Boland's patient hand inspire his better credentialed batting partners to hang around and save the day.

It is pointless to analyse the tail. Most culpable this time was Steve Smith, who in his short and strange stay at the crease was given a reprieve by Proteas keeper Ryan Rickelton but failed to make South Africa pay, falling soon after to an objectionably unserious dismissal in a game that was, from Australia's perspective, a little too full of them.

Australia was 5-219 at the time of this pivot point, not entirely written off. Rabada had just taken the second new ball. Boland, batting steadily, had just driven him to the long-off boundary with a beautifully straight bat. Smith? Convention be damned. Rabada sent down a length ball on a fourth-stump line. Smith, for reasons known only to him, decided he should launch over the fence at deep mid-wicket. Instead he skied it and Matthew Breetzke juggled a catch. Therein lay the death of the contest.

Much has been made of Marnus Labuschagne's battle against morality, but Smith is now a fairly pressing problem too. For a long time, he has been Australia's Mr Dependable — not simply a better batsmen than younger alternatives, but an undroppable ornament, encouraged to play how he likes, to bat where he wants and indulge his obsessions however he sees fit.

Yet that greatness is suddenly fading fast, the numbers dwindling, Smith's insularity intensifying into less pardonable distractions. It is hard to shake the feeling that he and Labuschagne's overall effect on Australia's flaky batting group is a net negative on a psychological level as much as a statistical one.

A subtle but remarkable insight into this dynamic — ignored at the time — was glimpsed during the Bangladesh series in August, when Cameron Green used a post-match interview to explain the genesis of his own breakthrough first Test century on home soil.

"I was able to go back to Shield cricket … kind of a good little reminder about how I want to go about it," Green told ABC Sport at the time. "I think when you're playing in a pretty good Australian Test team, you bat behind some pretty good players in front of you and I think I probably got caught up in how they go about it. So, I think the beautiful thing about going back to state cricket is to remind myself how I want to go about it."

In other words, Australia's most gifted player of the generation to come was admitting that in order to get himself firing as a middle-order batsmen in this Test side, first he had to get himself far away from the influence of his teammates.

Green, of course, will be pushing his case for selection in Cape Town after injury ruled him out of the first two Tests. Should he be declared fit, the Beau Webster dilemma need not be as emotive as Australian coach Andrew McDonald made it in his press conference on day four.

But it is puzzling to consider the reasoning for even selecting Webster in this match, in which he was never likely to bowl many of his seamers in an attack featuring four frontline quicks, was not asked for his off-spin, nor deemed top-six material with the bat.

McDonald was right to say the issue is not as straightforward as armchair selectors would have it. Like Mitch Marsh before him, Webster is clearly a much-loved team man. Over the English summer just gone, Warwickshire teammate Sam Hain spoke with genuine emotion of the mutual respect and pride Webster had created from the minute he arrived. Warwickshire duly won the championship trophy. But Webster's numbers told a less compelling story: 403 runs at 33, 12 wickets at 40. At Test level, same goes.

The most sensible scenario at the top of the order is that Nic Maddinson, a walking wicket against Rabada, will drop out and Matt Renshaw slide up. Cooper Connolly, who at ODI level recently justified the hype around him, must surely be in line to enter a team crying out for fresh blood.

Looking beyond this result and this series, one wonders whether Australian cricket can find a clarity of purpose and be as ruthless as it needs to be to avoid toppling over a cliff when Smith, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon are finally gone.

On that note, here is a quote to consider, from Australia's chairman of selectors: "Part of our charter is obviously to provide for the future," he said. "We are very aware that some of these blokes are getting on in age, and that's why it's very, very important for them to continue to perform."

Unfortunately, that was not George Bailey referring to this current Australian team, average age 34, which in Durban was the oldest XI since the 1920s and the first in Test history to not feature a single player under the age of 30.

No, it was Trevor Hohns, late in 2000, referring to arguably Australia's greatest combination ever. Its average age? Erm, 30.