Marco Jansen was a sole light of hope for the Proteas on a testing second day at Newlands.

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By any measure, Marco Jansen has enjoyed an outstanding year in Test cricket. There was Guwahati and, of course, Gqeberha just last week.

It all culminated at Newlands on Wednesday when Jansen not only claimed his 100th Test wicket, becoming the third-fastest South African to reach the milestone in terms of balls bowled, but was also crowned the world's No. 1-ranked Test bowler.

"Marco, he's just a very, very hard worker, just absolutely focuses on, from practise to when he plays," Proteas bowling coach Piet Botha enthused.

"It's all about trying to just get the same rhythm all the time, and learn by other people. That's how he learns, and all his confidence that he needs, and he uses it."

That was about as much positivity as Botha could muster on a day when South Africa's bowlers were forced to toil for much of the second day of this series-deciding Test.

Jansen (2/37) was once again the pick of the attack, removing the key wickets of Cameron Green (65) and Matt Renshaw (74) in consecutive overs after Australia had surged to 184/2 during the middle session.

Unfortunately for the Proteas, those proved to be their final breakthroughs of the day. Not even Jansen could penetrate the defences of Josh Inglis (85*) and Alex Carey (51*), with the wicketkeeper-batters sharing an unbroken 145-run partnership for the fifth wicket to leave Australia firmly in command at 330/6.

Botha said the bowlers had anticipated a demanding day but acknowledged they would need to improve if they were to force their way back into the contest.

"I would grade it (the bowling performance) probably 6 out of 10. You always knew it was going to be a tough day, you know, the way the wicket's playing. No lateral movement there, so it was always going to be about the big effort," he said.

"I can't fault the effort, I thought the effort was there the whole day. Maybe if we're self-critical, maybe we didn't get enough length for long periods of time, because once a wicket plays like that, you've got to create some maidens and hopefully create a false shot, and if you do that, chances might come your way. I thought on a pitch like that you need a bit of luck or let's call it things to go your way. Probably didn't create enough of that.

"I think once the ball gets older, then obviously you try and get a little bit of reverse if you can, but if you don't get a lot of that, it's about possibly field placing, whether you're going to go into the channel, whether you're going to get a bit straighter, try and get the field placing and earn a different ball, so if you think on a flat wicket, a yorker might get a wicket, or a bouncer might get a wicket, you almost got to earn that, you can't just go for it all the time, so it's something where you also need to make sure that you stay in the game, that the game don't run away from you."

It certainly did not help that both Proteas spearheads, Jansen and Kagiso Rabada, were hampered by physical issues during the day, with the former battling back stiffness and the latter stomach cramps.

Botha is fairly confident they will be ready for action on Thursday.

"He's (Rabada) got some stomach cramps, so he came off the field. I think it's just something that came about today. Yeah, so he wasn't at his best today, so hopefully he'll recover soon," Botha said.

"I think Marco just had a little bit of stiffness. They rubbed his back during the break. There's obviously a little bit of stiffness. Not 100% sure what it is, so we'll still check deeper into that, what the problem is. We've been three weeks into the cricket, so you can expect guys are getting a little bit of pain here and there because of the workload, but I don't think it's serious at this stage."