It was a pivotal moment. Those who follow cricket - admittedly a diminishing group - knew anything could happen. The dry pitch was cracking in the heat and the game, and quite possibly the series, depended on what happened over the next few hours. Disaster in Adelaide had been followed by victory in Melbourne. Australia was two wickets down and 309 runs behind: a tough ask, but not an insuperable one. It all depended on the play.

It could, in other words, have been one of those great moments of Test cricket. A chance to delight; opportunity for excitement and power. One of those days that might allow fans to genuinely believe they weren't just wasting all those hours watching the game in vain.

So what did Australia deliver?

Swearing and squabbles; scuffing and sledging.

The only redeeming moment came the next morning. Perhaps captain Tim Paine had finally listened to the team's media coaches, or maybe he'd just come to his senses - but for whatever reason (and you'd hope it was because the penny finally dropped) he spoke the unvarnished truth.

On the field the day before the mic had caught him opening his mouth to call Ravi Ashwin a "dickhead" and a "goose" and suggesting none of the Indian team respected their captain. So what happened next over? Well, it was Paine who managed to drop what should have been a clean catch, allowing the visitors to continue ploughing through the Aussie defence.

"My leadership wasn't good enough," Paine said the next day, and he's absolutely, unequivocally right. He shouldn't, however, blame himself.

In the meantime, sacked former captain Steve Smith was busy scuffing out Rishabh Pant's batting guard marks. He, naturally, claimed he was just figuring out how he'd play the crease, a defence that might have sounded plausible it it was coming from someone not convicted of ball-tampering and if you couldn't see the deliberate pause before the marks were deliberately and vigorously scuffed away.

This team's had the same problem for years and it's one nobody should be putting up with any longer.

Everyone knows that the player's internal mental game is a vital part of elite sport. As teams lose the ability to dominate the technical moves, they attempt to open up the field as they desperately search for advantage. Instead of relying on prowess at the game itself, those close to the crease are now pretending they are capable of playing deep psychological games with their opponents, presumably in an attempt to put them off. The problem is they can't even manage this properly.

It might be better if the team just went back to playing cricket.