Australia's shell-shocked Test team wilted under Proteas pressure in a 322-run loss to South Africa in Cape Town as the ball-tampering fiasco proved far too big a distraction.

Set an unlikely target of 430 after South Africa was eventually dismissed for 373 in its second innings, Australia had no will to answer the Proteas' bowlers after the tourists' openers were dismissed.

Cameron Bancroft (26), under the cricketing world's burning gaze following his central role in day three's controversies, combined with David Warner (32) for an opening stand of 57, in a day where Steve Smith and Warner had been stood down as captain and vice-captain by Cricket Australia.

But once that partnership was ended by a run-out engineered by Faf du Plessis, the collapse was on. Spectacularly, Australia lost 10 wickets for 50 runs in a single session as Morne Morkel (5-23) ripped the tourists to pieces with pace.

Warner was removed by Rabada again, before Keshav Maharaj (2-32) prized two wickets in as many balls by dismissing Usman Khawaja (1) and Shaun Marsh (0).

From there on, it was the Morkel show as the beanpole paceman, in his last Test series before retirement, produced a string of short-pitched fire to procure the edges off Australia's lower order, finishing with match figures of 9-110.

"It's been a horrible 24 hours to be perfectly honest," said stand-in skipper Tim Paine.

"I'd like to take the opportunity to apologise to our fans and Australians back home and the guys who travelled over here. They deserved better than what we put up yesterday.

"It's difficult for all of us, the last 24 hours, it's been a bit of a challenge for us. Down the track there's an opportunity for all the guys to grow as a team and we've got to try and take some sort of the positives out of that, long term."

Look back at how it all unfolded.