The tour of South Africa was supposed to be Australia's opportunity to stamp their dominance and enter a golden era. They had convincingly won the Ashes and shown enough signs over the previous 12 months to believe a return to being an undisputed powerhouse was imminent. It all looked to be going to plan after a convincing triumph in Durban before things fell apart and exploded with the ball tampering scandal, which has ripped apart the Steve Smith captaincy reign. Those dreams of a renaissance for Australia, who have been shamed on-and-off the field in the past 10 days, are over and no one quite knows what is ahead.

After a week from hell, they tried to soldier on in the fourth Test but were further embarrassed in the biggest Test loss in terms of runs in 84 years. Without their former leaders Smith and David Warner, who have long done the heavy lifting in the batting, Australia were feeble and routed for 119 in less than 90 minutes on day five. A run out to Nathan Lyon, the final wicket, was a fitting final humiliation of a shambolic tour.

"It was borderline embarrassing," Tim Paine, the Australian captain, told reporters after the Test. "I honestly felt we were going to be a lot better than we were but it (the scandal) probably had a lot more of an effect on guys than we thought," he added. South Africa beat Australia in the final test match by mammoth 492 runs. South Africa won the test series by 3-1 against Australia.