“I certainly didn’t notice too many people being that nice to Virat or not trying to get him out or anything like that,” Paine told ESPNcricinfo. “I thought everyone who had the ball in their hand or when we were batting were trying their absolute best to win the game for Australia. I’m not sure who was going easy on him; we certainly had a thing where we didn’t want to provoke any fight with him because we think that’s when he plays at his best.”

Speaking for himself, Paine said he had nothing to lose, as he wasn’t a part of an IPL franchise in any case, but denied that his team, by extension, wasn’t giving their best during the four-Test encounter, which India won 2-1, for their maiden series win on Australian soil.

“What you say on the field is irrelevant 99 per cent of the time,” Paine said. “Sometimes you can get a little inside someone’s head or something like that, but if you’re not batting well and not bowling well, all the talk in the world doesn’t mean anything. There’s no doubt our first focus is on executing our skill and being as good as we can possibly be in that area and then sometimes things happen on a cricket field and you’ve got to go in, you’ve got to change your tack, or you’ve got to have a few words.

“As we’ve seen the last 12 or 18 months, we still do that, we still stick up for each other, we still fight as hard as any Australian team, but we’ve probably just had to move with the times and I’ve been really proud of the way we’ve played out cricket.”