Negativity of Virat Kohli rubbed off on his teammates, says Mark Waugh

Team India had a horrific day at the office on the opening day of the Bengaluru Test against Australia. Former Australian cricketer and the current national selector Mark Waugh reckons that it is the negativity of India’s skipper Virat Kohli that is letting the team down. India were badly beaten by an embarrassing margin of 333 runs by Australia in the first Test at Pune. Kohli was right to remark that such shameful performance will definitely not be repeated again. However, it did repeat and the hosts were bundled out for 189 in the first innings after Nathan Lyon scalped 8/50 in his spell.

Virat himself could not score big and now has a cumulative of 25 runs across the three innings in this series thus far. Waugh tried to analyze the same and came out with his verdict. As per the quotes in Sportskeeda, Mark Waugh pointed out that Kohli has become overly cautious and is plagued by negativity. He could have easily tucked the ball on the leg side on which he got out. But just because he was overly cautious, he let it pass by and the eventual result was there for all to see. He noted that Kohli spoke of playing with intent but himself failed to live by the word.

“That’s a brain fade. I know the ball before bounced and hit him on the thigh pad and he’s a bit worried about those two men on the leg side but that’s bread and butter for an Indian batsman (especially) a class player. You just tuck that off the hip. It was very un-Kohli like. He made a point of saying ‘we need to play with much more intent in this game’ but he’s been the prime example of not actually doing that,” quoted Mark Waugh.

The former cricketer elaborated further as he said that the close in fielders got to the skin of Kohli and that led his downfall in the game. For a man of Kohli’s calibre, the runs could have come on tricky surfaces like these. It is this negativity that has crept in the skipper’s mindset that is affecting the entire side, believes Waugh.

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“He’s just thinking negatively because there are men around the bat. He’s thinking if it bounces, he might get an inside edge. As a batsman, you can’t think like that. He can hit that ball in his sleep for runs. He’s obviously thinking a little bit negatively and that’s rubbed off on a few of his teammates,” he conceded.