Australia’s first Test loss to South Africa as bad as it gets and lessons must be learned, Robert Craddock writes

DON’T be fooled by the semi-respectable last day scoreline — this was a serious hammering and it’s left Australia in a state of numb confusion.

DON’T be fooled by the semi-respectable last day scoreline — this was a serious hammering and it’s left Australia in a state of numb confusion.

It’s not easy to look in the mirror after a Test which has left your face redder than a overcooked mudcrab.

But that is what Australia must do in the wake of a loss which was one of the most telling in its recent history, far worse than the offshore debacles in challenging conditions in Sri Lanka.

South Africa have won five Tests in Australia since the apartheid era and all have featured stirring comebacks.

In its own way this was as good as any of them.

Imagine the looks you would have had a few months ago if you tipped South Africa would win like this with superstars AB de Villiers (absent injured), Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn contributing one wicket and one run between them.

Incredible.

Mitchell Starc was underdone and it showed. Picture: Daniel Wilkins

Shock results provide big lessons and the first from this match is that it’s time for Australia to listen to its players.

When Mitchell Starc was underdone and begging for extra work in the Sheffield Shield match against Queensland he was ordered not to bowl and taken out of the game.

Starc’s not an under-10 player who does not know his limitations. He would be as good a judge of his own body as anyone. If he reckons he needed work, he needed work.

And so it proved.

REPORT: HUMILIATING LOSS ENDS AUSTRALIA’S STREAK

ANALYSIS: MARSH SHOULD BE GIVEN ONE MORE CHANCE

The entire attack were underdone for this game leaving the scoreline: Hard-arsed South Africa 1, Sports Science Obsessed and Generally Mollycoddled Australia 0.

No wonder the selectors blew up behind closed doors over workload restrictions placed on their bowlers by the team’s medical staff.

Australia’s selectors must regroup and give thought to reworking a policy which worked in troubled times in the mid-1980s.

Pick players of robust character. Look for some Steve Waugh flint, some Ian Healy chirp, some Merv Hughes gusto. Good team men.

Adam Voges failed to fire in the first Test. Picture: Daniel Wilkins

This team needs more guts. There is no staying power among the batsmen. It lacks players who dig in their claws and ride the rhythms of a Test.

If Adam Voges exists beyond the next Test the system has failed.

At 37 he is the past not the future.

Much has been made of his big Test average but in the three series in which Australia needed him most — against England, Sri Lanka and this one — he has not cut it.

Every player must look at their own contribution. Peter Nevill has beautiful hands and shapes as a 50-Test player but is he doing enough to lift the troops in the field?

Australia has rugged times ahead with two more Tests against the Proteas plus a series against Pakistan before a tour of — sensitive souls look away now — India.