There are several signs you have not played a Test in almost a year: a dusty baggy cap, feeling winded after your third or fourth spell as a fast bowler, and batting the way South Africa's top eight did against Australia in Durban.
Make no mistake, Australia have an exceptional bowling attack, who create and sustain pressure better than almost anyone else. But that was not the case here. Everyone from Aiden Markram to Keshav Maharaj will have to admit to wasting good batting conditions with poor shot selection. They were overly bold for no apparent reason other than that England are touring later this summer and the philosophy may be preceding the team.
In the end, it was the first time South Africa have been bowled out for under 300 with seven or more batters crossing 25 and their fourth-highest with no-one scoring fifty. That statistic underlines that everyone on day three got starts but no-one went on to anything substantial. Though batting coach Ashwell Prince at first said he didn't "think it was too much aggression," but "possibly more the timing of the dismissals," he later conceded South Africa did not do enough to wait out the "intensity," of the Australian attack.
"They're going to come with a certain intensity that can only last for a certain period of time," Prince said at the post-day press conference. "That's the learning. Sometimes you've got to be able to absorb, absorb that intensity until you take the sting out of the attack. And then there's runs to be had."
That was evident early on when Markram and David Bedingham progressed to 84 for 1 in a partnership laced with some of the game's most attractive drives. For a period, they took on the much vaunted Australian attack, who defaulted to bowling too full. And then, it went wrong. Markram attempted a booming back foot drive off a Mitchell Starc ball he could have left and nicked to slip. After what followed, he was probably the least culpable of the batters and played a shot that usually works for him. This time it didn't. These things happen, though, and Australia were alert to it and immediately turned the screw.
Temba Bavuma faced 14 balls before he scored a run and was on 3 off 27 when he played the first of two ill-fated reverse-sweeps in the South African innings. It was clearly the shot of someone who felt he had to try and create a scoring opportunity but thanks to excellent anticipation from Steven Smith at slip, Bavuma did not get away with it.
At the other end, Bedingham, who was on 45 when Markram was dismissed had only made his way to 48 when Bavuma walked off, and was also feeling the heat. Like Markram, he drove off the back foot to a ball he could easily have watched go past him. Bedingham just about fed the ball to the cordon, where Smith all-but-intercepted Renshaw to take a catch for the ages. South Africa lost three wickets for 15 runs in 10 overs that could prove match defining.
The fifth-wicket pair of Tristan Stubbs and Wiaan Mulder were together for 98 balls. Stubbs brought out the reverse-sweep against Lyon, Mulder got a thick edge off an attempted cut off Travis Head's only over and with a hint they may be settling, Cummins brought himself back. The third ball of his third spell was banged in short at 143kph and Mulder could not resist a pull. When he tried to get out of the shot, it was too late and the ball ballooned to midwicket. In his next over, Cummins sent down a much slower short ball which Stubbs top-edged to deep fine.
Marco Jansen came out swinging and while it was fun to see him slog his way to 26 off 20 balls, it was less amusing when he whacked Hazlewood to mid-off. By then, Kyle Verreynne had already fallen to the second of those reverse-sweeps. Verreynne's choice of shot was particularly puzzling because it is one he barely plays at Test level. According to Cricinfo data, he has only scored 29 of his 1266 runs with that shot, and been dismissed playing it three times.
All those shots would surely raise eyebrows from the batting coach and Prince's lifted a touch. "It's a pretty good pitch and most batters feel that they can play most strokes. The confidence was there to play on the surface. They could trust the bounce and trust the pace of the pitch but I feel we could have been better at sensing the intensity of the opposition and also reading the situation," he said. "Cummins is an astute captain and when there is a sniff, he is going to keep his fast bowlers going. Every time a wicket falls, it energises the bowling attack, and they feel that they can push on a little bit more."
Jansen's dismissal, in the 55th over, also underlined the main difference between South Africa and Australia's best batter from the first innings: Matt Renshaw, who left 29% of the first 97 balls he faced, which took him into the 56th over of the Australian innings. At the same stage, South Africa's batters combined, left 16.4% of the time. Worse still, is that South Africa knew exactly what they needed to do with bat in hand. "He took the approach of wearing the bowlers down and he did that really well," Prince said.
At the press conference after day two, Mulder singled out Renshaw's ability to leave. Ironically, the thought came to Mulder too late. Of all the shots that should not have been played, his stands out especially because he tried to undo it as it was happening. Would Prince advise Mulder to put that away, at least early in an innings? Not quite. "Some guys are more aggressive than others. Some guys tend to go after their strokes more than others and over long periods of time, they reap the rewards of that. And sometimes, you know, it doesn't pay off."
Instead, it's Australia who have the luxury of being able to play that way. With a 139-run lead, and six sessions, in theory, left in the match, Prince expects Australia to come out swinging as they push to take the series lead. "Tomorrow we might see a lot more of what we saw this evening in their approach: coming out aggressively, putting the team ahead of self, meaning they want to get as far ahead as possible with trying to make up time," Prince said. "I can anticipate them coming out aggressively and trying to set a lead as quickly as possible and obviously we have to be alert to that."