After a series from which it was impossible to tear your eyes, here are some things we did not need to see or hear.
1. Virat Kohli's machismo. So what that he doesn't take a backward step. So what that he gives as good as he gets. We saw that. We heard it. We've been hearing it for a while. India won, they're No.1. Does that not speak for itself? Or is it that he wishes to be seen as those Australian teams he so despised when they were trampling all over his forebears, brilliant but bellicose and belligerent. In a word, ugly. They will be flattered by the imitation.
2. That Kohli regards some friendships at an end. I don't care about his friendships. I don't care about his enmities. They're for gossips. During the series, I cared about the interactions of the cricketers, one lot of skills pitted against another, and about a few niceties and graces. Now that it's finished, it's still all I care about. It was sublime.
Next week, it's the IPL. In Kohli's Royal Challengers Bangalore team, there are three Australians, Shane Watson, Travis Head and Billy Stanlake. There, he will have to affect to have some Australian friends. A few million dollars will do that. A few million dollars made Shane Warne and Graeme Smith suddenly inseparable.
3. Anything from Kohli. He wasn't captain. He wasn't playing. He is an exceptional player, but for diverse reasons he barely made a mark on the series. Ajinkya Rahane was captain in Dharamsala, and in obvious and deft command. If Indians had feared that their team would be lost with Kohli, they were quickly disabused. So, why was Kohli at the post-match media conference at all?
4. The players' dressing room balcony television shot. Some days, it seemed like the cameras were trained there more often and longer than on the play. The non-playing Kohli got more air-time than any mere player.
It is as ghoulish as the cameras trained permanently on the coaches' boxes in the AFL. As in the AFL, they eventually got their man. When Murali Vijay claimed a catch which after video review was disallowed, an infuriated Steve Smith was seen to exclaim "F------ cheat".
In a quantum way, this was different to the moment in Ranchi when Kohli made a display of walking out onto the balcony to applaud after Australia blew a review. Kohli wanted to be seen, and filmed. Smith was as unselfconscious as if on spycam. To say that he should at all times be aware of the possibility of a watching camera is to say that the Australian captain has his priorities wrong.
First, I don't think Vijay cheated. But in such a tense and fierce contest, a little venting is inevitable. On the ground, a player must be answerable for all his actions. In the streets, ditto. But in between, there must be a sanctuary where, if not participating in the game, a cricketers can exist au naturel. And if you maintain that in private you are at all times as you are in public, well, beatification awaits.
By the same rationale, it was once protocol in Australian cricket not to show a dismissed batsman as he started his walk back, because of the near certainty of a mouthed expletive, and why it is still protocol for the pitch mikes to be muted when the ball is dead. Or was protocol. Sometimes, a tree must be allowed to fall in the forest, soundlessly.
Smith at least had the grace to apologise anyway. Kohli did not, not for his accusation of unsustainable systematic cheating by Australia, not for anything. Doesn't back down, remember.
5. Anything from the BCCI. It published on its website a clip of a contretemps between man-of-the-series Ravindra Jadeja and Australian wicketkeeper Matt Wade, complete with notionally privileged audio from the stump mikes. As sledging goes, it was pretty innocuous, but why would the official cricket body in India put it out at all, except to foment trouble?
India and Australia have long rubbed each other up the wrong way. Rivalry will do that. So will slippage between cultures, though less now than ever. In this series, there was also an element of confected outrage, of cricketers looking for offence to take, the better to give it. Who do they think they are, lefties? I mean righties?
Kohli had two shoulder problems, one an injury, the other a chip, and a long time to nurse it. Fortunately, the cricket was so enthralling from first day to last that no one will remember its underbelly.
Until next time.
