Mitch Marsh could not hide his dismay at how Australia capitulated tamely in their opening ODI in South Africa, succumbing to a 67-run defeat after a succession of cheap dismissals in a sorry run chase at Durban.

Stand-in skipper Marsh himself seemed to have laid the foundations for victory with his blistering opening knock of 60, but after he had perished needlessly to the spinning wiles of Kehav Maharaj, none of his team could cement the partnerships to get them anywhere near the hosts’ 298-run target.

After watching the world champions collapse to 230 all out off just 41.2 overs, Marsh sighed: “I’m pretty disappointed, South Africa outplayed us. It was a good game of cricket, but we fell well short.

“We had our opportunities, I am probably going to sound like a broken record speaking about having partnerships in our batting, but we weren’t able to form many tonight.”

The South Africans had set a challenging target after being inserted by Marsh, compiling 297-8 thanks largely to a brilliant 112 from Matthew Breetzke and a spectacular 75 off 59 balls from pace-bowling allrounder Marco Jansen.

Marsh, standing in as skipper again for the rested Pat Cummins, then led from the front in response with his 36-ball pyrotechnics, which featured three sixes, one of which sailed for 104 metres over the dressing room roof at Kingsmead and landed at the roadside.

He shared a blistering opening stand of 90 in just 9.2 overs with Travis Head, but like Head (36), Cooper Connolly, who had looked supreme in making 38, and Matt Renshaw (44), he got out to an airy shot when the Australians were up with the required rate and under no real pressure.

The superb spinning of the two slow left-armers Maharaj (4-20) and Bjorn Fortuin (2-34) soon put them under that pressure, though.

Discomfited, Josh Inglis got out to a poorly executed reverse sweep the eighth ball he faced and Australia lost their last six wickets for just 54 to allow the Proteas to draw first blood in the three-match series.

The key moment may have been when Jansen took a sensational running, diving, one-handed catch in the outfield, stretching out his long telescopic arm to scoop up the ball just above the turf to get rid of key man Renshaw off Gerald Coetzee. It left Australia on 215-7, and there was no way back.

The opening loss has really put pressure on Australia to turn the series round at The Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday, when Cummins is set to be recalled. They haven’t won a bilateral series against South Africa since 2014.