'We want to achieve the same feat against Sri Lanka' – Dean Elgar

South Africa would have been a tad worried at the end of day three as Pakistan worked their way to 153/3 in chase of a lofty 381, but the home team's fast bowlers feasted on the Pakistani batsmen once again on the fourth morning, taking seven wickets for 120 runs in a session to secure their team a 3-0 whitewash.

Olivier, who was named Player of the Series after topping the charts with 24 wickets, started the carnage on the fourth morning by dismissing Babar Azam and Sarfaraz Ahmed off successive balls. The others joined the party, leaving Pakistan no chance.

A good deal of the credit for the clean-sweep goes to the fast bowling unit, and Elgar, standing in for Faf du Plessis in the third Test, gave them a special pat on the back. "We know they are a good team," said Elgar after the victory had been completed. "We are very fortunate to have that arsenal of four fast bowlers."

The South Africa team had plenty of reason to smile and celebrate, moving up to second in the MRF Tyres ICC Test Team Rankings as a result of their series win, and they will look to continue the winning ways when Sri Lanka tours next month.

"Three-nil is what we asked from the guys, and we have achieved that. We are halfway to our goals for the season. We want to achieve the same feat against Sri Lanka."

Things haven't been so good for Pakistan. Their batting, in particular, looked vulnerable although there were glimpses of promise. The team now won't play Tests until after the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2019, when the ICC World Test Championship is set to get underway. Their head coach Mickey Arthur is keen to find solutions to the batting frailties by then.

"We play Sri Lanka in the United Arab Emirates in September, then we play Australia in Australia straight after that," he said "We have to have our skill-sets perfect to manage the bouncing ball. I want to get our batsmen into Australia three or four weeks early, to have camps there to get them ready."

However, Arthur was quick to jump to the defence of Pakistan's captain Sarfaraz, who has endured a tough time with the bat, and in terms of team results recently. On a personal level, the tour was encouraging for the gloveman. Sarfaraz made two half-centuries, having not previously reached the milestone in eight Test innings, and set a new record for catches by a Pakistani keeper in a game with his 10 grabs in the third Test.

“This question always arises at the end of a series,” said Arthur. “Sarfraz goes from strength to strength. He wants to lead from the front. I thought his wicket-keeping has been outstanding. What we need is to get a good core of leaders around him. If we can do that, he’ll go from strength to strength.”