South Africa had shuffled some baby steps forward, despite 2-1 defeat, in the still extremely recent, highly competitive Twenty20 international series with England.
On Friday at a stunned-into-silence Wanderers (so much for a raucously hostile Warner-Smith welcome, eh?) they lurched several large, clumsy paces backward in the first of three contests with southern hemisphere arch-rivals Australia.
The Proteas were truly given a bloody nose: thrashed by a gaping margin of 107 runs as they posted their lowest completed total (89) against any customers in the format, well within the prior ignominious landmark of 98 all out against Sri Lanka at Colombo in August 2018.
