With Steyn and Morne Morkel in their early 30s and struggling with injuries, South Africa may find themselves in a daunting transition period earlier than expected. © Getty
Adding injury to insult, their seemingly mediocre first innings target of 242 was quickly being overhauled as Australia looked set to take a commanding lead. The game appeared to be following a distinct pattern regularly seen in Australia in recent years. The visitors were crumbling on foreign terrain and history suggests Australia are almost impossible to stop at home when they have their tail up.
South Africa appeared to be wilting under the pressure of confirming their side as a Test force having tumbled down the ICC Test rankings in recent times. However, as they have displayed numerously in Australia over the years, resoluteness is one of South Africa's inimitable characteristics and it came to the fore when they needed it the most.
In adversity, with their backs firmly against the wall, South Africa impressively found a way to grind back into the contest with sheer will to trigger an Australian collapse of 10 for 86. Australia's batting is notably fragile with several batsmen clinging for survival but South Africa's weakened attack deserve all the plaudits for triggering a startling transformation to get right back into the contest.
Several poor shots by reckless Australian batsmen coupled with a controversial dismissal of Steve Smith aided South Africa but, truth be told, the visitors were relentless on a pitch which had a hint of movement, yet was hardly a landmine.
Veteran paceman Vernon Philander (4 for 56 off 19.2 overs) filled the sizeable hole left by Steyn and used all of his experience to help engineer a comeback that no one could have predicted. Philander was the pick of the bowlers as he rediscovered his guile, which uncomfortably gnawed at the batsmen.
Most encouraging for South Africa were the performances of youngsters Kagiso Rabada (2-78) and Keshav Maharaj (3-56), which was perhaps an intoxicating glimpse into South Africa's future. With Steyn and Morne Morkel in their early 30s and struggling with injuries, South Africa may find themselves in a daunting transition period earlier than expected. Despite his indefatigable nature, Philander is also the wrong side of 30.
With Rabada and Maharaj starring under severe pressure on day two, South Africa's future looks bright. The selection of left-armer Maharaj was a shock with Morkel expected to get the nod with South Africa's intent on fielding a four-pronged attack on the pace-friendly WACA deck.
Instead, it was perhaps a revealing insight into the South African selectors' mindset, who have been tantalised by Maharaj for some time. It is easy to see why they were willing to throw the 26-year-old into the cauldron of the WACA, an infamous graveyard for spinners.
There was little turn on offer and Maharaj doesn't particularly let the ball rip but, instead, he has a knack of deceiving through flight and guile. It is very early days, but Maharaj has some of the same trickery from Rangana Herath's magic bag. Most impressively, he is highly accurate and his consistency flustered an impatient Australian batting line-up that was trying to intimidate the debutant.
In contrast to Maharaj, Rabada was one of the most talked about players entering the series with Australian audiences keenly awaiting the firebrand hailed as Steyn's successor. Amid the swirling hype, there was always the worry that Rabada would stray and suffer a counter-punch from Australia's aggressive batsmen.
After a nervy start late on day one, Rabada produced his best in the immediate aftermath to Steyn's injury. With a 148kmph thunderbolt, Rabada sent Usman Khawaja's off-stump cartwheeling in an early contender for the ball of the series. It was the kind of fillip a despondent South Africa desperately needed and helped revive their flagging spirits.
The 21-year-old's express pace makes things happen ensuring he will always be a handful for opponents, much like Mitchell Starc. He will have to hone more control to temper his innate aggressive instincts but Rabada has all the trappings of being a superstar in the making. Rabada seems destined to be South Africa's spearhead sooner rather than later; it is reminiscent of when Starc was the cusp of supplanting an ageing Mitchell Johnson about 18 months ago.
However, if South Africa are going to take a series lead in Perth, he'll likely have to immediately fill the breach with Steyn cruelly being ruled out for the remainder of the series.
After the second day's play, Philander said the bowlers were motivated after Steyn's injury. "Dale has been the leader of this attack for a very long time and it was sad to see him go down like that," he said on Friday (November 4). "We had a job to do to get them out as cheap possible. We have to find the best combinations in the second innings, there is a lot of responsibility on myself and Kagiso now."
After the disappointment of having a successful DRS against David Warner late on day one negated because of a no ball, Philander repaid the team in spades with a virtuoso performance backed up by his enthusiastic tyros. "You take responsibility and, therefore, I came back today and really turned it up," he said. "As a bowling attack we went back last night and chatted about the lengths we bowled and tried to execute a lot better."
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