Steven Smith, like his A-Team namesake Hannibal Smith, loves it when a plan comes together. And Australia's plans for this tour of India - a campaign of which Smith is immensely proud regardless of what happens in the final Test in Dharamsala - have been coming together since they were humiliated with a 0-3 defeat in Sri Lanka last year.
For Smith, that tour was a wake-up call. Prior to that series Australia had only ever lost a single Test to Sri Lanka; now they lost three in a month. Their run of consecutive Test defeats in Asia had stretched to nine. And so Smith and coach Darren Lehmann needed a new approach, a new resolve, when a four-Test tour of India was on the horizon.
A two-week training camp was scheduled in Dubai prior to Australia's arrival in India, so they could control the types of surface on which they trained, and formulate plans for difficult conditions. Still, it is hard to imagine that even the Australians themselves believed they would dominate the first Test in Pune in quite the way they did, and would remain alive in the series with one Test to play.
"I learned a lot out of Sri Lanka when we lost there, just about playing in the subcontinent and leading in the subcontinent," Smith said in Dharamsala ahead of the fourth Test against India. "I had a reasonable idea before I went to Sri Lanka of how I wanted to do things, how I wanted to do thing a lot differently and didn't want to over-attack and things like that.
"I think you can see it in the way that you have to play here. You can't attack non-stop. You have to have defensive fields at times and people are going to be critical at that but they're not the ones out in the middle that have to do the job. I know that if you get a bit defensive on occasions and build a bit of pressure.
"Back home when you're talking about building pressure you talk about maiden overs but here it's more if you go for two an over it's pretty good over. It's very hard to contain the scoreboard. If you're limiting the boundaries, keeping the runs down and building the pressure that you need it makes a big difference."
As unsexy as such talk of defence and containment can be, Smith's plans have put him within touching distance of becoming the first Australian captain since Adam Gilchrist in 2004 to lead a series victory in India. That would not have been the case but for some impressive fight from Peter Handscomb and Shaun Marsh on the final day in Ranchi, where they toughed out a draw that felt like a win.
"If you look at past sides that have come here recently that day five result we had the other day where we were able to play out the draw, that's just ended pretty quickly for us on a few occasions where we've just rolled over," Smith said. "Having the fight and willingness to work hard to get the results we're after, it's been great from the boys.
"I thought the way we fought out that draw was magnificent. I'm sure they [India] would be disappointed that they couldn't get the result they were after. In that regard I'd rather be in our boat than theirs."
In particular, Smith has been thrilled with the work of the young opening batsman Matt Renshaw in this series, in what is his first exposure to cricket in the subcontinent. Renshaw will turn 21 during the Dharamsala Test but has outperformed most other batsmen in the series - only Smith and Cheteshwar Pujara from either side have faced more deliveries this series than Renshaw.
"I've been really impressed with Renshaw," Smith said. "For a guy who's never been here before it's almost a different game when you get out to the middle and you see guys around the bat and crusty wicket, things like that, and that can get to players, players who have played for a long period of time.
"For a guy that's only played a handful of Tests, to go out there and just play his game and back what he's worked on over the last few weeks has been amazing. I think a lot of the guys, the more senior players, have taken a bit out of the way he's done things having only been a youngster and not been here before. That's been really good."
The teams enter the final Test with the series locked at 1-1, meaning the winner in Dharamsala's inaugural Test will claim the Border-Gavaskar Trophy - and in the unlikely event of a draw, Australia will retain it as the current holders. Smith said that although much hard work remained over the next few days, he was proud of his men regardless of the final outcome of the series.
"We all know that this is one of the toughest places to come to play as an Australian team," he said. "Regardless of what happens in this last Test match I think the way we've played has been a credit to each and every individual here. We've played some very good cricket. We probably did a couple of things wrong in Bangalore where we could have wrapped up there series or had a two-nil lead. The cricket we've played has been really good.
"Right now we're in a good position. We've got to play well this week and hopefully win the series here but we'll do that by doing the things that we've done well in this series so far and just doing it for just a little bit longer. I'm not worried about the result as such ... It's obviously a relatively young side and this team could be together for a very long time."