Virat Kohli's Mentality Questioned As Experts Tear Into India Icon Over Repeated Flop Shows

Virat Kohli's struggles against balls outside the off-stump in the ongoing Test series against Australia has the great Allan Border wondering if the Indian superstar has "just lost that edge". Kohli has fallen to balls outside the off-stump four out of five times in the series thus far, prompting comparisons with a similar slump in England back in 2014. On Monday, he was caught behind chasing a wide ball that he could have left alone.

"Today's dismissal, that's normally a delivery he would have left alone if he was in his best possible form,” Border was quoted as saying by Fox Cricket.

"I'm not sure what's going on with Virat mentally (and) whether he's just lost that edge.”

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy is named after him and the Indian legend. Former England captain Michael Vaughan said Kohli has paid the price for not leaving enough balls. “He's a player who's going out there (and) almost trying to get on top too soon,” Vaughan said.

“When he plays at his best, particularly in Australia and England when the ball does a little bit more, he just leaves the ball. Most of his dismissals in this series have been balls that he could have left. I don't think he's got a jaffa,” he said.

Our batters needs to leave more balls: Pujara

India's wall on the previous two tours of Australia, Cheteshwar Pujara, also analysed the visitors' struggles in the batting department.

"We saw the way KL (Rahul) batted, because if you apply yourself, if you defend well, if you leave the balls well and even which Aussie batters did, if you look at the way (Nathan) McSweeney, Usman (Khawaja) and even (Marnus) Labuschagne did..." Pujara told ESPNcricinfo.

"I mean they didn't score too many runs but they batted more than 50 balls which allowed Smith