For those Australians who really only follow cricket during the home summer, essentially in December and January, they could have been forgiven for thinking they’ve been fed a pack of lies all these years. An old wives’ tale, perhaps.

Because in treacherous terrain, alien conditions or however you want to label playing in South Asia, Australia ruthlessly disposed of Sri Lanka like they had done it all before. With the series beamed into Australia on free to television – the first time for a series in the subcontinent – Australians were wondering what all the fuss has been about.

But the stats don’t lie. Before this series, Australia had lost four of five matches across the 2016 and 2022 tours in Sri Lanka. Since their last victory there in 2011, Australia’s only series triumph in the subcontinent was in Pakistan in 2022. Australia had only three times clean swept series in Asia and all those were between 2002-06 with a team regarded as Test cricket’s GOAT.

Australia winning the series wasn’t necessarily a surprise, it was the lopsided nature. They firstly inflicted Sri Lanka’s worst ever Test defeat having had the best of the conditions on a flat surface in Galle.

So, as host countries do, a much spin-friendlier surface – a real ragger – was promised at the same ground for the second Test. It didn’t faze an Australia team boasting high-calibre players of spin and their own spin-heavy attack was far more venomous than their impotent counterparts.

The end result was consecutive thrashings, an unexpected outcome given Australia had reason to underperform on this series. They were coming off the back of a draining – most mentally and physically – home series against India and were shorthanded without skipper Pat Cummins and quick Josh Hazlewood albeit they aren’t as valuable in the subcontinent.

Series in Sri Lanka between the teams had traditionally been competitive unlike in Australia.

But Australia were well planned, made the right selections calls and overwhelmed a limp Sri Lankan team that is spiralling despite some reasonable patches in Test cricket last year.

Steve Smith was supreme as stand-in skipper and his tactical nous came to the fore. He had never been notably tactically astute when he was the permanent captain before the ball-tampering saga in 2018. But Smith is older and wiser, has seen it all and trusts his gut instincts.

Such Smith’s command over the series, his every move worked to such a degree that he seemed like a physic, that Cummins was completely forgotten.

But this team’s legacy has been hard to pinpoint. Many cited that their thrilling victory over India recently was the team’s highpoint. But home series never are legacy defining. Winning in the West Indies in 1995 and India in 2004 cemented those Australian teams as all-time greats, indelible triumphs that will stand the test – pardon the pun – of time.

This current team don’t have that type of achievement. They’ve never won in India, while they’ve drawn their past two away Ashes series. Their greatest feat was winning the 2023 World Cup against a rampaging India and silencing 100,00 fans in the final.

In Test cricket, Australia have the distinction of holding all the trophies and they are the reigning World Test Championship winners. But they have had a habit of fumbling the bag, most notably letting a 2-0 lead slip in the 2023 Ashes in the UK. As good as they’ve been, Australia didn’t quite have that ruthless streak possessed the team of the 2000s.

And they knew it. Straight-shooting veteran Nathan Lyon even publicly admitted it ahead of the second Test. It had clearly frustrated them that they occasionally would fumble matches they really shouldn’t have. It’s what separated them from being a really good team to great. They hadn’t reached that final level for a sports team.

So they set about changing that in Sri Lanka. There was a ruthlessness that was evident throughout starting with when Travis Head set the tone in the first morning with a rapid half-century right through to their dismissive run chase to wrap the series.

It really felt like it came out of Steve Waugh’s playbook. But Australia know that to be measured favorably with their legendary predecessors, they will have to keep this up for the long haul. There are boxes to tick off such as June’s World Test Championship final and the home Ashes, but 2027 will be heavily circled.

That’s the year when Australia will tour India and England, looming as a Last Dance for many of the players. Legacy defining series, some might say.