The pain in his right arm was just too excruciating, the cast protecting the broken knuckle on his left hand just too uncomfortable.

But what did it matter, the series belonged to South Africa, and even in defeat they claimed a victory of sorts thanks to the tenacity of the lower order and the bravery of Smith, who batted for 29 minutes, faced 17 balls and scored three runs as South Africa came within 10 balls of saving the last Test.

Australia eventually won by 103 runs.

With every shot he played severe pain shot through both his arms. "Obviously there was a lot of pain," Smith said of his innings afterwards. "But I was grateful I never got another knock on either part of my body. Most balls hit the bat. Once one ball hit the bat, I kind of went, well okay, that's one out of the way, keep watching the ball and keep hoping it hits the bat."

Smith, who did not expect to play any part in proceedings at the Sydney Cricket Ground on the final day, did not bring all his own clothes along. His bat, pads and gloves were in the changeroom, he had to bum a shirt off Jacques Kallis and a pullover - with a hamburger stain on it - off Paul Harris.

The broken finger meant Smith's gloves had to be modified to form a makeshift splint, which was then wrapped with tape.

"We cut the glove a bit, so we could keep the fingers together and then just taped it around. So we became our own manufacturers there for about five minutes," Smith explained.

"I was more worried today about getting a blow on the hand than anything else."

He did all that without pain-killing injections too, saying that would have had very little effect.

Smith was grateful to Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn, whose 73-minute ninth-wicket partnership made it possible for him to attempt his defiant innings. "That partnership was great. I was hoping they would bat all the way through."

As it was, the two South African fast bowlers copped blows to the head, shoulder and in Steyn's case, worryingly, his right hand, for which he required treatment at one stage.

When Steyn was out there were still 8.2 overs, or 50 balls, left and Smith walked out to rapturous applause from a crowd of just over 9 000. He started his innings by blocking two balls from Andrew McDonald that caused him severe pain.

When Mitchell Johnson returned the pain was ratcheted up further as Smith had to keep out a series missiles - timed at over 140km/h - from speedster.

Smith survived that assault and even managed to get three runs. He admitted to watching the Australians hold a conference before Ricky Ponting decided to use Johnson to bowl the penultimate over of the day from the Paddington End.