The Proteas come back from Sri Lanka disnis gespin.
And their confidence must have taken a moerse knock after losing the two-match Test series.
When they left for the south Asian island, they were vol gees having beaten India and Australia in the months before.
But all of the good work, the resilience and adaptation to the threats from the Indians and Aussies just evaporated in the heat of Colombo and Galle.
The grit shown by their opening batsmen was gone and they had turned into easy targets.
Young Aiden Markram failed big time in his mission to prove that he was no hometown bully.
Ahead of getting on the plane, the youngster looked at the 1 000 Test runs he had accumulated against the big boys and told everyone that would hear that he was not going to fall flat on the spinning tracks.
Unfortunately, the top-order batsman had a disaster of a tour.
And he will have to regain that swagger that allows him to play the ball so late by the time the Proteas go Down Under at the end of the year.
He looked very unsure of himself – playing early, reaching for shots and struggling with his footwork.
Markram is the kind of player who you can see was having his first tour away
from home, but it wasn’t the same for his colleagues who SA have so often relied on.
Old master Hashim Amla looked completely out of it and skipper Faf du Plessis just couldn’t stick around and give his manne the sort of innings that could save his side.
Coach Ottis Gibson will have to give them a list of things to work on to improve and play themselves back into form in the SuperSports Series – no excuses.