Kohli and dance of love and hate in Australia

They booed him. Then they cheered him. Then they cheered because he asked them to.

- Ashish Magotra

But as he walked off the field after playing presumably his last Test innings Down Under, the chorus at the Sydney Cricket Ground was a mix of boos and admiration. The greats are usually given a standing ovation when they play their last match on foreign soil, but that wasn't the case with Kohli.

Rather, the home crowd seemed to be asking: "What is wrong with Kohli?" A question Australia had not asked of Kohli for a long time. He got under their skin, he was spiky...spunky.

But he backed it up with performances on the field; performances that told of an almost unhinged desire to win.

Australia didn't mind that they loved the idea of someone coming to their backyard and picking up a fight.

Perhaps the ending (if it indeed is) shouldn't surprise anyone. For this is how it began all those years ago, when Kohli first toured Australia in 2011/12.

We all remember Kohli 'flip the bird' at a section of the SCG crowd during the second Test back then. It had led to the 50% docking of his match fee. He had tweeted later that the crowd had said the "worst things" about mothers and sisters.

It was only after scoring his first Test hundred, at the Adelaide Oval in the fourth Test, did he open up.

"To give it back verbally and then score a hundred is even better," he had said. "I mean, we don't go out there to take any kind of stuff from anyone. We are international cricketers as well. They should know that.

We need to let them know that.

Be it in any way. By talking and by performing. It's much more satisfying.

"They sledge when they get frustrated. Obviously, it was hot out there, and constantly they were sledging the players so they could spoil our concentration. During that partnership they went really, really low. In Sydney they were after me because I wasn't scoring. Today they were pissed (off) because I got a hundred; so, it hasn't changed much but the reasons have changed." It hasn't changed much. Really.