In fact, going on the recent record of common knowledge and received ideas, Australia will rip through South Africa under sunny skies, Mitchell Marsh will make a double-century and Joe Mennie will be man of the match.

Steve Smith's genius as captain will have him lauded as the new Ian Chappell, while David Warner will receive a nomination for the Archbishopric of Sydney and the Nobel Peace Prize. And Donald J. Trump will be the president-elect of the United States.

Journalists' ability to see into the future has broken through its previous all-time lows and is still to find its bottom. With that in mind, a 'Test match preview' is something like a punchline. Even a 'Test match review' can't be trusted.

So let's attempt to look at what is on the record. South Africa, which, in the wake of numerous notable retirements, amid a precipitous decline, approached this series with a heavy reliance on its champions.

In the first Test match, it got little or nothing from any of them. Dale Steyn, A.B. de Villiers and Hashim Amla were respectively broken, absent and ineffective. And yet the remnants defeated Australia by 177 runs, the first time Australia had lost at home in four years, the first time it had lost a summer's first Test match since 1988.

Given South Africa's handicaps, it was the equivalent of the Melbourne Storm winning the NRL grand final by 40 points without Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater. The Bulldogs smashing all-comers in the AFL without Marcus Bontempelli, Jason Johannisen and anyone called Boyd.

Perhaps we should be glad, as well as on safe ground, to be looking back, because this was one of the most stirring wins in the Proteas' history.

This column asked if the hosts' performance was 'un-Australian' – not that such a concept has any substance, but because under Darren Lehmann's coaching there has been emphasis on what, within that cricket circle, is called 'the Australian way'.

They have introduced the idea that Australians play international cricket with a unique brand of aggression, fearlessness and, above all, resilience. An Australian team never knows when it is beaten.

In Perth, this Australian team knew it was beaten even when it was winning. It looked beaten when it was three wickets down and in an ostensibly strong position on the second day.

By all internal measures of this presumptive 'Australian way', the performance was a failure on a continental scale.

The most fortunate outcome of that match – in keeping with what George Costanza might call 'opposite week' – was Australia's injury list. Shaun Marsh's broken finger has allowed the restoration of the Warner-Joe Burns opening partnership.

Nobody seems to think Burns is any good, but he has scored hundreds in one in every four Test matches he has played. He and Warner have an excellent record as partners, and the Queenslander is at least used to opening the batting.

Adam Voges's hamstring, like his batting, has begun to look every bit of its 37 years. But it could have been a Trojan horse. Through its auspices, Callum Ferguson has been smuggled into the squad, and voila, Australia have six batsmen.

It looks as if Voges has recovered from his injury in time to make another bid to defy the years. Personally, if I were a selector, I would have Ferguson (or better yet, Nic Maddinson) at number five or six, and Mitchell Marsh in the team as a first-change seamer and number eight batsman, where he always should have been.

But, as every journalist should be saying this week: what would I know.

In the past few years, a heavy flogging has been the best predictor for an Australian revival. Nothing focuses the mind quite like a humiliating home defeat.

They got that in Perth, so, if they are to stage an opposite day, a repudiation of forecasting and biased media, they cannot say they have not been perfectly prepared.