The Proteas suffered yet another embarrassing defeat to England in the fourth and final Test at the Wanderers on Monday.
Needing 466 runs in their second innings for the win, with two days left to play, they were bowled out for just 274 runs - 191 runs short of the winning target to hand England a 3-1 series win.
Opening their second innings, South Africa were going to have to bat out of their skins if they wanted to win the match. But true to form, they collapsed again.
And if it wasn’t for some resistance in the middle order, with Rassie van der Dussen scoring 98 and captain Faf du Plessis chipping in with 35 alongside Quinton de Kock who contributed 39, the scorecard would have looked a lot worse.
POOR: Quinton de Kock put up a poor performance. Picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters.
In fact, with those guys in the middle they looked to have made a fight of it, taking the score to 235/4 at one stage.
But then the collapse and they were bowled out for just 274 - the last six wickets going for just 39 runs.
Of his team’s poor batting throughout the series, Du Plessis said: “We weren’t at our best in the batting department. We just didn’t put enough runs on the board.”
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/FafduPlessis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FafduPlessison the incident where he made shoulder contact with Jos Buttler. #SAvsENG pic.twitter.com/vuNvdxWOYA
— Mahlatse Mphahlele (@BraMahlatse)
He then admitted: “Right through the series, England were just a little better than us.
“You have to give credit to them for being the better team.”