Given the opportunity to choose where they could spend the past six weeks, it's unlikely the Proteas would have chosen the Caribbean. Usually a tour of the West Indies is one of the more attractive fixtures on the calendar with its warm weather, opportunity for off-days on the beach, five-star hotels and similarly accommodating opposition.

Yet as Graeme Smith's side would have heard from friends and family back home, South Africa is enjoying one of the greatest months in the country's history. The football World Cup has breathed new life into the country and provided a welcome focus for celebration, yet the Proteas have spent it playing in a series that few people will have noticed or cared about.

It's been the ultimate test of their professionalism, and so they emerge from it with enormous credit having won all of the 10 matches bar one - a five-day clash on a pitch so flat that it was not worthy of its 'Test' status. Although there hasn't been an Australia-in-their-pomp ruthlesslness about them, the way South Africa ground down the West Indies on day two of the final Test showed an intensity and determination that has often been lacking over the past 16 months.

Although the West Indies were unable to provide stiff competition, there were also plenty of other reasons for the Proteas to feel it was a productive tour. Most noticeable was that with JP Duminy replaced by Alviro Petersen there is a greater balance to the side, and the restoration of Ashwell Prince to the middle order has brought out the sort of scrapping innings that he simply wasn't able to produce at the top of the order.

Petersen has done well enough on his first full tour, but has been guilty of throwing away starts in just about every innings - his scores for the series read 31, 22, 52, 39, 1 and 6. His inability to turn those first four innings into big scores was largely down to his attacking nature and there was a feeling at times that he got carried away - particularly in the second Test when he slog-swept straight down backward square leg's throat moments after striding to fifty in 65 balls.

However, allied with his century on debut in Kolkata he's certainly done enough to earn a lengthy run in the side, and his appearances in press conferences and as a pundit on Supersport during the World Twenty20 have suggested that he has a mature head on his shoulders that will work out how to kick on from a promising start.

The dominant pairing of Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn continue to blow batsmen away on all surfaces but more encouraging for South Africa would have been the performance of Johan Botha in the third Test. His seven wickets will not necessarily put him ahead of Paul Harris in the pecking order, but it will provide the Proteas with a welcome option going forward.

Harris is an under-rated bowler who generally performs a selfless containing role for the benefit of the fast bowlers. His inclusion has worked well for the Proteas on pitches without much turn, but at least Botha has shown that he adds an attacking alternative when the wicket favours the spinners.

That could prove particularly handy given South Africa's biggest disappointment of the tour: the lacklustre performances of their third seamer. In fairness to Lonwabo Tsostobe, he did his job on debut in the first Test, which was to keep things tight at one end. Then when he was invited to attack the batsmen in the second Test, there was no assistance in the pitch whatsoever. Nevertheless more was expected from a 26-year-old who has now been on the last three South African tours and who has been earmarked as the player who could keep the politicians happy.

In fact, if any has enjoyed the best of both worlds over the course of this tour it has been Wayne Parnell, who will have taken in the good vibes back home as he nursed an injury, his reputation as South Africa's first-choice third seamer enhanced along the way.