Tahir screamed for lbw. Cummins said he felt it was going to leg. Johnson said to him it had pitched outside off. ''That's just what I thought!'' Cummins said. The appeal failed, and so did the referral, by a splinter. In the dressing room, lounge room and bedroom, there was relief and there wasn't.

Cummins thought to himself: ''There's four to win. If he throws it up there, try and go over the top somewhere.'' As he related this later, Clarke rolled his eyes. Here was youth's blithe innocence. Two balls later, Cummins pulled Tahir for four and the win.

Enter Cummins, so callow that the birth date on his player profile would have prompted cynical smirks had he been picked for Pakistan. At 18, some of us lacked the wit to find our way to the lecture room, let alone produce an over of such speed and variation that 40-time Test centurion Jacques Kallis was befuddled, then defeated.

At 18, some of us could barely pluck up the courage to extend an exploratory arm at the drive-in cinema, let alone put our body in the path of a Steyn thunderbolt in the Johannesburg gloaming.

There is no doubt that the Proteas will be disappointed with the outcome of the Test series. They were without question the stronger outfit. They would have expected to beat an average Australian team on home soil. The South African team were brilliant in Cape Town during the first Test match where they came back from the brink to win in incredible fashion.