Patience.
That was what the Proteas needed.
That's what you always need in India. The pitch will never help you. If you're trying to take wickets you never will.
Philander needs pitch assistance more than anyone else in the side because he takes his wickets through small deviations most of the time. If that deviation is missing then he is just an average slow/medium bowler. Totally the opposite when he's playing on SA pitches.
Rabada has the pace to cause problems on any pitch but he doesn't swing the ball enough. He's not patient enough to take wickets on length alone so if there isn't much carry off the surface he struggles as well. In India, as long as you know where your off stump is, and you adjust to Kagiso's natural length...he'll be lucky to get you out. He varies his line more than his pace and that's a mistake.
Morkel had the same problem(no swing). That's why he relied so heavily on balls dying on the batter and hitting the top of off or the pads when it should have carried through past the hip. But he used his height and took pace off the ball to create uncertainty. It worked for him.
Steyn was successful because he had some pace, swing and the ball always threatened to hit the top of off. He was short for a fast bowler but it allowed him to err on length more than taller bowlers with less swing could. He built his career without having a truly threatening short ball in the way Flintoff or Johnson had.
If Malinga was Morkel's height he bowled with a high arm, he wouldn't be known as the yorker guy.
The point being that every pitch and every bowler's body offers both advantages and disadvantages.
India has flat pitches. The mindset should be that India drawing at home is a loss for them. Make them be the aggressors. Bore their batsmen to death.
Philander should be staying away from the pads and forcing India to play drives on the up or flashing outside off to get runs. His field should be offside heavy to both limit singles on the offside and force batters to play across the line if they want to find the boundary.
Similarly Rabada should be staying away from the body most of the time. Bowling short later in the over won't do him much good. If he wants to attack the body it should be the first ball of the over and it should be rare. He should be varying his pace more than his length. And doing so towards a sixth or seventh stump. The bounce he extracts, or lack there of if he slows it up a tad, is all the variation he needs. It's what causes the fatal last second adjustment from a cut shot to a backfoot drive and it's effective.
The bowling unit's plan must be to limit runs. In SA you can buy wickets. In India you can't.
There is no excuse. India are playing on the same surface but their bowling plans are just mile's ahead of SA's.
Just my two cents.