Gary Kirsten's goofy grin following South Africa's ODI series defeat to Australia beggared belief.

After his first stint as national coach ended in failure, the least Kirsten could have done was show disappointment, even if he had to feign it.

His silly smile emerged in response to a question about Australia's young speedster, Patrick Cummins. Kirsten was asked whether he thought the 18-year-old would feature in the test series, after his remarkable rise to the top, having played his first international just three weeks ago.

The South African coach's response was to hold his hands out like an unbalanced scale, show his pearly whites and blurt out a giggle. Thankfully, he did not add his stock phrase of the last few months.

"Haven't got a clue" Kirsten would reply when asked anything from how he would deal with different captains across formats to whether he thought South Africa had healed from their World Cup wounds.

It is worrying if Kirsten has not considered the possibility that Cummins, who, with his pace, control and variation, is likely to be one of South African biggest threats.

It says more than Kirsten having the ability not to panic; it suggests he does not know how to.

Calm is one of Kirsten's greatest assets and it is valuable if he can adjust.

In India, calm can be the orderly movement of thousands of cars down a street, instead of them zigzagging into and veering away from one another.

It can be a shop assistant flinging three instead of 300 different colours and styles of saris across the floor. In Kirsten's case, it was the only way to create distance between himself and the vultures disguised as the media.

Instead of giving in to the frenzy that would have erupted after defeat, or the extreme levels of lauding that came with victory, Kirsten had to create a cloud in order to float above it all. He came across as, at best, aloof and, at worst, indifferent.

Those two traits do not fit into South Africa's definition of calm. Here, calm is about waves licking white sand, shimmering stars in a clear sky and Sunday-morning lie-ins.

It is not watching a cricket team struggle to bat on a pitch that has no demons and then seeing them bowl waywardly to an opposition that scores freely, as South Africa did in Durban o n Friday.

It is also not about blowing off those faults as minor concerns that will iron out as the summer unfolds.

Perhaps Kirsten has a hidden plan. Perhaps the dressing-room walls echo with instructions and the players hear his scolding in their sleep.

Perhaps if a glimpse of that more serious side to Kirsten peeked out, the South African public would know that their miracle coach cares.