Perspective is more valuable to a cricket team than runs and wickets, and doubly so when players are forced out of their comfort zone - which has happened to South Africa in England.
As if a disappointing one-day series was not bad enough, South Africa crashed out of the Champions' Trophy in a way remarkable even for them.
Then followed a shocker in the first T20 in Southampton on Wednesday, when they dawdled to 142/3, which England bettered with nine wickets left and 5.3 overs to spare.
Even considering the format and the lineup, drawn from an experimental squad, that's a hiding.
They meet again in Taunton today and in Cardiff on Sunday.
Then we reach the main course: the Test series.
That's a foreboding thought, and less because of the way South Africa are playing than the way they seem to be thinking.
"I know it doesn't look like it, losing by five-odd overs, but they had the freedom of going after us because they had wickets in hand and we had a low total - it would have been a different game if we had got 20-odd more [runs]," AB de Villiers told reporters.
"From the 12th, 13th over we tried to go. We honestly had the intent to take it to them. I told [Farhaan Behardien] about 10 an over and we end up getting fives and sixes at times."
- TimesLIVE
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