Can injury-hit South Africa find new heroes, again?

South Africa are already known as the unluckiest team when it comes to major tournaments and now it seems their fortunes are turning foul in the longer format as well. Vernon Philander is the fourth player to have suffered a series-ending freak injury in the last three years, forcing a change in the fundamentals of the team.

Each time, South Africa have found a solution that has led to long-term strategic changes. What effect might it have now?

Mark Boucher v England 2012
Before the series had begun, Boucher announced it would be his last but his intention was to stop playing after the three matches. He did not even make it through the first warm-up game.

He was standing up to the stumps during Somerset's innings on the first day of competitive cricket on the tour when an Imran Tahir googly sent a bail bouncing upwards and into Boucher's eye. The impact was immediate and dramatic as Boucher put a glove to his face and saw no blood, but optic fluid. Something was very, very wrong.

Within 24 hours, it had been determined that Boucher would not recover in time for the series and perhaps not at all. His eyeball was lacerated, the lens had fallen out and he would not be able to see. He retired the next day, requiring a fast-forward of the succession plans South Africa had put in place.

Thami Tsolekile, who had played three Tests in 2004, was earmarked the next national wicket-keeper after he established himself as the best gloveman on the domestic circuit. He was centrally contracted in April 2012 and the long-term plan was that he would begin his tenure during the 2013/14 summer, against New Zealand and Pakistan at home.

When Boucher retired, Tsolekile was called up to the South African squad in England but team management did not want to throw him in the deep end. There were whispers that his first-class batting average of 30.43 was the worry, even though he had done better than that in the two seasons before his call-up.

Instead, AB de Villiers was installed behind the stumps, despite chronic back problems, which allowed South Africa to lengthen their batting line-up. JP Duminy was added as a seventh specialist batsmen, a move that proved a masterstroke in that series, in which South Africa took the Test mace off England, and in the months to come. The extra batsman compensated for the lean patches some of South Africa's other players - Graeme Smith, Alviro Petersen and Jacques Kallis - went through after that.

JP Duminy v Australia 2012
Duminy had only been the seventh specialist batsmen for one series when lady luck had a laugh at his expense. He was warming down after the first day of the first Test in Brisbane - a day in which he played no part in on-field activities - when he crashed to the floor as though shot by a sniper. He was carried off by the physiotherapist Brandon Jackson and then-bowling coach Allan Donald and an MRI revealed a ruptured Achilles' tendon which would require at least six months rest.

The disappointment for Duminy ran deep - he had scored his first century in his first Test in Australia in 2008 - but it ran deeper for South Africa. They had only just begun using seven specialist batsmen and Duminy's injury threatened to derail that plan.

Faf du Plessis was the reserve batsmen on the tour and he was picked to debut in Adelaide, a match South Africa should have lost. They were set a target of 430 in the and were 77 for 4 close to the end of play on day four. The final morning was pre-scripted, or so we thought.

Du Plessis spent seven hours and forty six minutes grinding out a century and thwarting Australia's every effort to move him. He was blind to the scoreboard, deaf to their sledges and numb to the pressure. That innings established du Plessis as South Africa's wall, someone who could bat with patience and persistence, and eventually paved the path for him to succeed Jacques Kallis at No.3.

Quinton de Kock v West Indies 2014
South Africa's wicket-keeper situation, which sprouted in 2012, was thought to be solved by Quinton de Kock. He relieved de Villiers from the burden of busting his back behind the stumps and provided an attacking option with the bat that ensured the team still had seven specialist batsmen in the side. But in the fifth Test of his fledgling career, he rolled over his ankle in the morning warm-ups, could not keep for the rest of the match and was in danger of missing the World Cup.

In that series, de Villiers took over again, to prevent too much disruption to the team dynamics which allowed Temba Bavuma to debut. The significance of Bavuma's caps went beyond the boundary and into South African society: he was the first black African batsmen to represent the country and only the sixth black African player to play a Test. In a country scared by racial segregation, this was a crucial step in showing a commitment to change.

De Kock ankle healed in time for the World Cup, but his form remained patchy for months after that. The eventual result was him being dropped from the Test side altogether in Bangladesh in July this year, something that my not have happened had the injury not happened. But again, there was an upside for South Africa. With de Villiers not playing the Bangladesh series to be with his new-born son, South Africa called up Dane Vilas and played him. Vilas was retained for the India series as well. For the first time in almost two decades, South Africa had created competition in the keeping department.

Vernon Philander v India 2015
At face value this should not be the kind of injury that changes the course of a series but in its context it could.

Of South Africa's three premier pacemen, Vernon Philander was the one expected to come up short in these conditions, which do no offer much assistance. He quelled such doubts by finishing as the most successful seamer in Mohali, by using the same methods that have worked for him all over the world. Under cloudy skies in Bangalore, he would have been a handful.

Instead he scored an own goal when he stood on Dean Elgar's foot during the footballing warm-ups on a training day. At first, Philander tried to stumble back to the changeroom, but in the end he had to be carried there and was later diagnosed with multiple ankle ligament injuries that could take up to eight weeks to recover from. He will no take no further part in this series and may not even be fit for the first part of England's tour to South Africa later this summer.

While it's a big problem for South Africa in itself, the other two fast men are also falling. Morne Morkel missed the first Test with a quad strain, and although he has recovered for Bangalore, there may be fears of a relapse. Dale Steyn, who suffered a groin injury which kept him from bowling in the second innings in Mohali, has been ruled out of the Bangalore. There is uncertainty over whether he will recover for Nagpur.

That means the very structure on which South Africa's strength has rested over the last four years has been shaken. They will need to rely on a new crop of bowlers, who will not have the experience of Philander and Steyn to usher them through. Kagiso Rabada is promising and Kyle Abbott's potential has made the occasional appearance but they do not inspire the same level of confidence as their predecessors, yet. New players seldom do and that's usually okay, except that this is not the series South Africa would have wanted to enter a brave new world in.

This was one for the tried and tested, the ones who got them to the title of No.1 and are supposed to keep them there. Now, fate has other plans. Still, there has been a silver lining to every one of South Africa's previous injury clouds, so they have no reason to believe they won't find one this time.