Temba Bavuma required some time. He took it, then. Australia’s win, by 214 runs, at Kingsmead on Tuesday had been confirmed minutes earlier. In the heat of Durban, the hurt lingered through the handshakes. So much of Bavuma’s life is lived in an often unkind, unfair, unblinking glare. When you meet him, you'll wonder how such a private man manages to maintain such little privacy. On Tuesday he did that by exiting the field stage left and sitting in the welcome darkness of the dugout. Except for a brief seven-minute visit from the team's media manager to arrange for what was to come, he remained splendidly isolated there. He had his back against the curved roof with his head. His right arm was draped over the seat alongside him. His left knee was bent so that his foot could ride on the seat behind him. He focused on the future. His thoughts were his own, but he wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t pondering losing a Test as captain for the first time in his 13 matches in charge. He was considering playing in only the fifth Test of the 38 that have gone to a fifth day over the past ten years, which was less certain. Bavuma looked like a man waiting for a bus, unhurried and unperturbed, whatever he was thinking. since Bavuma does not engage in drama. Certainly not in public. The closest he has come to looking flustered in front of the press was in the aftermath of South Africa’s calamitous loss to the Netherlands in a T20 World Cup match in Adelaide in November 2022. That shock put his team out of the running for a place in the semifinals, and Bavuma seemed startled to be asked if that would make him reconsider his position as captain. That was not the case with the outcome on Tuesday. But it would require explanation. Bavuma stood up after those precious seven minutes in the dark and prepared to leave. It is not the way you want to begin any series, much less one against a formidable team like Australia. The feelings are still strong. Before you begin the conversations and truly comprehend what transpired, you want that to settle. But there are obvious things that we could improve on, whether it’s from a batting or a bowling point of view. In that change room, no one is content. “Yeah, that’s part of the disappointment, right. The Australians deserve praise for their persistence when we had them at 120 [124] for six. You are backing yourself to reduce their number to less than 250 as an attack. We were mentally wiped out when they went and got the score. The conditions were good for batting and we weren’t able to make the most of it.” I will never be able to use that as an excuse while I'm here. We were aware that would be in front of us. We had the chance to get as much ready as we could. Yes, playing Test cricket is the only way to truly prepare for Test cricket. However, many of our errors were mental. That, you know, is where we really let ourselves down. Hopefully, any lingering smudges have been cleared away. “It’s about assessing the conditions. We try to play in a certain way when the pitch says to. We've been successful because we followed that strategy. There hasn't been a single difference in the conversations leading up to this game. “There were soft dismissals. We could throw me into that category. When you're playing against a top outfit those things get weeded out. Our players were definitely not playing rashly and disregarding rules. However, there was a degree of pressure to which some of the guys were not used. Between matches, Bavuma and his players will have four days to regroup before the St. George's Park Test on Sunday. Bavuma needs to find more wonderful moments of solitude before then.