Making sense of the events that occurred overnight in Cape Town isn't going to be easy. Like staring at a surrealist painting or keeping up with Today Tonight's segues you know you're experiencing something profound but you don't quite have the wherewithal to fully appreciate it.

As readers and writers we're attuned to keywords. Collapse, for example, condenses a series of wickets (commonly referred to as a flurry) into a single, comprehensible word. How then can you adequately communicate a collapse of 10 wickets (commonly referred to as an innings); twice; on the same day?

Carnage would be a decent place to start. That would give an idea of the scorched earth disbelief that reverberated out from Newlands.

Madcap helps. Like a Benny Hill sketch batsmen jogged to the crease and marched back to the pavilion at a comedy pace.

Shameful is the partisan assessment of News Ltd's Mal Conn. An emphatic upbraiding of Australia's capitulation to 9/21 in its second-innings.

Glorious is my perverse slant on proceedings. For too long bat has had the whip hand over ball. Days like Wednesday remind us all that batting is and should be hard, not simply about pummelling boundaries with a spring-loaded tree trunk.

Of course, such a catastrophic (there's another word of choice) display of batsmanship will lead to calls about the death of Test cricket and the cancerous influence of T20. Don't believe the hype. Enjoy this absurd game in all its (hopefully) unpredictable glory. Like the sign above the Don Bradman Gate at the MCG reads, ‘It did, it does, & it always will.' Or, for the T20 generation, as Slim Charles from The Wire's Barksdale Crew puts it, "Game's the same. Just got more fierce."

Acknowledging the foibles in cricket's DNA is one thing, allowing for Brad Haddin's embarrassing dismissal is another.

After Michael Clarke dragged his side to 284 and Shane Watson and Ryan Harris skittled the Proteas for 96, it was time for calm heads, straight bats and confident leaves. Instead, we were treated to a cavalcade of kamikaze carelessness for which most of Australia's top order was culpable.

Twenty-three wickets in a day is simply too many to recall but that of Australia's wicketkeeper should not be brushed under the carpet. With the score 5/18 in just the tenth over and aware Shaun Marsh was incapacitated, Haddin stepped to leg and aimed just the third ball he had faced somewhere over extra cover. This was the moment where incredulity checked out and disbelief took its place. If someone was to ever categorise cricket's most reckless, feckless and idiotic shots, this would be a worthy contender. For the record, Damien Martyn got seven years for less.

On the same day as this potentially generation defining series of mishaps, Pat Howard, a man unused to failure, announced the appointment of Rod Marsh and Andy Bichel as John Inverarity's colleagues on the national selection panel. How that trio consider Haddin's form and demeanour come the home summer's entrée against New Zealand will be instructive. Similarly, patience with Phil Hughes must be wearing thinner than Jacques Kallis's rug and Ricky Ponting must be close to his final few rage-filled unsuccessful referrals.

It is a shame this Test match will last less than three days. Even more so considering the entire series now has a maximum of just eight days play.

Just 135 overs have been required to take 31 wickets in this match so far. South Africa's remaining nine must muster another 155 runs to complete one of the more remarkable Test victories.

After which it will be time for a stiff drink, a lie down and time to look forward to the Big Bash League for a bit of sensible orthodox cricket ...