The Bradman-like numbers of Steve Smith's 2014 suggest a certain ruthlessness, and the office of Australian captain asks for dignity. But the sense of fun he has brought to his dismantling of India is that of the child let loose while the parents are away.

Smith's 192 in Melbourne was an innings of epic size and stern significance, but he made its overall tenor seem as serious as Home Alone.

As a well-told story, Smith's innings, like the series so far, passed through contrasting moods and humours. On Friday afternoon, it was contemplative, as he came to terms with a two-paced wicket, Ravi Ashwin's inquiring length, and an unorthodox field that set a long-on directly behind a mid-on.

Then, after losing Shaun Marsh and gaining a jittery partner in Brad Haddin, Smith became protective, trying to divert the attack away from his battling senior man.

On a warmer Saturday morning, Smith, like a session musician, played second fiddle in his partnerships with Haddin, Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris.

In the first hour,  Haddin won his personal battle against the short ball, playing like a man who had stopped caring about getting out and swinging his bat as if nothing mattered.

Opening his legs and showing his class, to paraphrase Bruce McAvaney, Haddin began finding the ball as mysteriously as he has, of late, been missing it.

He peeled six boundaries from 15deliveries, and all of a sudden his touch had returned. Truth be told, M.S.Dhoni was his best friend during this period, setting far-flung fields, deputing Mohammed Shami to bowl medium-pace bouncers, and refusing to give Ashwin the ball until 18 overs had been bowled, 97 runs had been scored, and the game had bolted away from India.

Dhoni gives the impression of glacial composure behind the stumps which, in a crisis, can look more like glacial inertia. He was as stubborn in his failing plans as a man who decides to wear a jumper on a warm day and refuses to take it off (Dhoni was that man, too).

Nothing has changed about the  adage that a wicketkeeper sets the tone of his team's performance in the field, and India's ground fielding was no closer to the pace than Dhoni's captaincy. The misfields started from early on Boxing Day, and by Saturday afternoon Ishant Sharma seemed to be diving over the ball at mid-off, only to fail at that and stop it with his body by mistakenly landing on it.

If there is any upside in the monstrous fancy that Dhoni could throw away the match on purpose, it is that for him and his team to have played this way by accident would almost beworse.

Smith, all the way along, abided by the principle of not wasting one's form. No good balls went disrespected, and no bad balls went unpunished. When the sabres rattled, he was part of the argument: he had a set-to with Shami after dispatching two deliveries to the fine leg fence, though it's hard to know what the bowler could have said other than: "Just you wait for when I stop bowling leg-side rubbish!"

When Smith played and missed at Sharma twice on 110, copping a nasty blow somewhere beneath the abdomen, there was an air of loneliness (he was the only person in the MCG who did not seem to find it funny) and also of surprise (had he missed anything since Brisbane?). He did not need to force the issue until the end of the innings, with Haddin, Johnson and then "Jacques" Harris taking the initiative.

At length, when Nathan Lyon arrived at the wicket, Smith unfurled his unique array of slaps, swats, twinkles and twirls, until he was finally out attempting some kind of Sydney Sixers lark.

The records will preserve the bushels of runs Smith has harvested this summer. Memory will preserve what fabulous entertainment he has given.  More than any batsman since Adam Gilchrist, Smith has combined the ability to amass big scores with the impression of making it up as he goes along.

Even if he continues this way and steps up to the pedestal of the grand champion Australian batsmen, Smith is still a boy at play. Henry James said there is nothing but style. For his style alone, Smith has shone a light onto a dark time for cricket.