Steve Smith is proud of Australia's turnaround since the horrors of Hobart, but disappointment was the overriding emotion of the skipper after his side's eight-wicket loss to India in a Test cricket series decider.
Smith's side threatened to complete Australia's second Test series win in India since 1969 after shocking the top-ranked side during the series opener in Pune.
They had control of the second and third Tests early on, lost it, then showed good fight to front up to the fourth and final Test with the series level 1-1.
The tourists' push for a series victory, so full of promise during the past six weeks, unravelled during collapses in their first and second innings of the final Test.
It ended not with a bang, but a whimper. India hauled in the victory target of 106 with ease before lunch on day four of the final Test, completing a 2-1 series win.
"We have fought very hard throughout this series and to fall over at the final hurdle hurts," Smith said in Dharamsala on Tuesday.
"The boys are hurting. It's always tough when you lose a series at the final hurdle but the guys are going to take so much out of this.
"This team has grown so quickly. We are still a very young side, it wasn't too long ago we were at Hobart and it was the end of the world.
"So I am proud of the way we have been able to turn things around and really compete in these conditions ... it's a really big stride for this team and individuals as well."
The tourists snapped a nine-Test losing streak in Asia when they won in Pune last month. Smith feels they've proven they can shelve their natural games and perform under pressure on the subcontinent.
"We have competed in every Test. We can take a lot out of the way we played, the plans we had, but we just needed to do it a little bit longer," Smith said.
"We played some very good cricket ... it's been great to be in the series until day four of the fourth Test.
"It was a magnificent series, probably one of the best I've been a part of."
Smith finished as the leading run-scorer of the series with 499 runs. Ravindra Jadeja was named man of the match and man of the series, having top-scored in India's first innings of the decider then grabbed four wickets.
Both sides turned up to the scenic venue at the foot of the Himalayas on day four knowing Australia required a miracle to make things interesting, let alone genuinely threaten to snatch victory.
The top-ranked Test side resumed at 0-19, requiring a further 87 runs to reclaim the Border-Gavaskar trophy and bank a seventh successive series win.
Fittingly in a series stacked with twists and momentum shifts, the routine run-chase hit a snag during a dramatic 14th over when Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara were both dismissed.
Ajinkya Rahane, leading the side in the absence of injured captain Virat Kohli, restored order by smacking consecutive sixes off Pat Cummins.
"They had the belief of making things happen in these conditions ... they kept bouncing back," Kohli said of the tourists.
