Steve Waugh believes Australia have rattled Virat Kohli

What’s the story?

Legendary Australian captain Steve Waugh believes that the visitors have rattled Virat Kohli but he remains confident that the Indian captain will come good later in the series. Kohli was dismissed in controversial circumstances on day three but Waugh believes he needs to sort out his thinking.

Speaking in Facebook Live session on his official page. Steve Waugh said: "Kohli seems to be a little out of sorts at the moment. Australia have had good plans to him as well (but) he’s been a little bit muddled in his thinking. That’s best shown by two of his dismissals where he let balls go against the spinners. That’s something he never would have done even in his junior cricket days.

"That means he’s not quite thinking 100 per cent, so Australia have got him a bit rattled at the moment. I think he’s feeling the pressure of 1.3 billion Indians, wanting him to score runs and thinking he’s going to every time.”

Extra Cover: Ian Healy losing respect for Virat Kohli

The Context

Virat Kohli may be the No.2 ranked Test batsman in the world but has been out cheaply in every innings of the series so far. Before his controversial lbw decision on day 3, he was out twice letting balls go from Steve O’Keefe and Nathan Lyon and has rarely displayed the form that saw him score a double century in each of his last four Test series.

The Details

After scoring more runs than anyone else during India’s home season and being one of only two batsmen to have scored over 1,000 runs during that period as well. And it all began with a duck in the first Test off the bowling of Mitchell Starc, which was the first time in 104 consecutive innings in international cricket that he was dismissed for a duck.

Since then he has twice been out leaving balls he shouldn’t have left. The first was against O’Keefe in the second innings of the Pune Test where he was bowled and the second was in the first innings of the Bengaluru Test where he shouldered arms to a ball that was going to hit the stumps and then proceeded to review the plumb lbw as well.

The legendary Australian captain believes that Kohli is just not thinking straight but is confident that his poor form will continue throughout the series.

Extra Cover: Virat Kohli's controversial lbw decision

What's next?

Chasing 188 for victory, Australia have lost both openers on day four of the second Test at Bengaluru and they will look get the remaining runs to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the four-match Test series against India.

Sportskeeda’s Take

Kohli has not been in great form and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that he hasn’t found a way to score runs against Australia so far in the series. But as Waugh himself admitted, you can’t keep a great player down for too long, which is why Australia will have to look out for when he gets back in form.