A word on Virat Kohli: the India captain’s attitude rubs some people the wrong way. He’s in-your-face in a way that no Indian, not even Sourav Ganguly, has been before, and he’s definitely a far cry from the gentlemanly Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman, let alone Indians from previous generations.

He’s also crossed no lines that Australia haven’t already blasted to smithereens. Whatever hand-wringing former Australian cricketers are doing over Kohli’s behaviour – Allan Border, Michael Hussey, and Ed Cowan the latest to take offense – they’d be better served reassessing the way they, or in the case of Hussey, their team-mates, conducted themselves on the field. That was the point of the cultural review, wasn’t it?

And leave it to Tim Paine to be the flag-bearer of that review. Emerging from the lows of “sandpaper-gate”, and the subsequent shellacking a dispirited Australian team received in the final Test against South Africa, Paine finally has his first win as captain.

He’s done it by being the best example of “hard but fair” Australia have had in a long time. Unlike many of his predecessors as captain, Paine ensures his team can stand their ground, and even take it to the opposition, while still behaving well.

This is what an Australian team should be like. Never backing down, never giving an inch, competing hard, hard enough to beat the world’s No1 side by a handy margin, without going over the line. Indeed, Paine spoke of “drawing a line” after the match, a welcome phrase after “head-butt the line” became the defining words of last year’s Ashes series.

Paine’s confrontations with Kohli have already thrown up some sledging gems: “you’ve got to bat first, big head” in response to the India captain saying the series would be 2-0 to his side if Paine failed with the bat in the third innings; “keep your cool, Virat” after the two nearly collided later in the same innings, and “I know he’s your captain but you can’t seriously like him as a bloke”, said to India opener Murali Vijay late on the fourth day as the visitors’ chase was floundering.

All funny. Nothing over-the-top, disrespectful, abusive, or personal. The way it should be.

It was good of Paine to say that he had no problem with Kohli’s attitude or behaviour, unlike the rest of the Australian cricketing establishment seems to.

And Kohli will be fired up. He knows that by losing after making that 2-0 comment, he’s brought the attention squarely back on himself – not that he ever shies away from doing that. He also knows that he won’t be forgiven if he fails to bring home India’s first-ever series win in Australia, given that this remains a side shorn of two of the world’s best batsmen.

Thankfully there is some needle between the two now, some extra motivation for both captains to get one over each other, because an India-Australia series without any subplots would be a boring one indeed.

There is a rich history to this rivalry, and though it has gotten ugly quite often, it needed that spark, that sense of confrontation, something to make it truly feel like India vs Australia.

It needed an under-strength Australian team handing India a chastening 146-run defeat right after losing the first Test of the series, letting Kohli and company know, if they didn’t already, that this Australian team may not cross the line but it also won’t back down from it.

It needed Paine vs Kohli.