Kohli has come under scrutiny for his series of low scores in the ongoing BGT.
Apart from his second innings hundred (100) in the first Test, Kohli has registered paltry scores of 5, 7, 11 and 3 so far. The pattern of his dismissals is the biggest cause of concern.
The age-old problem of fishing outside the off stump has led to Kohli’s downfall. The likes of Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Scott Boland exposed his weakness in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
Ahead of the Boxing Day Test at MCG, Australian legend Greg Chappell weighed in on Virat Kohli's struggle in recent times and called it Elite Performance Decline Syndrome (EPDS), which he suggested even the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting went through.
“The first visible sign of EPDS is a subtle but unmistakable shift in a player’s approach at the crease. Kohli, once renowned for his domineering starts, has in recent years shown a tendency to begin tentatively. Much like Tendulkar and Ponting before him, Kohli seems to need a buffer – a score of 20 or 30 – before he can rediscover his flow," Chappell wrote in his column for The Sydney Morning Herald.
Chappell suggested Kohli to set a target of reaching 20 or 30 first to take the psychological advantage and regain some confidence in the middle.
“Reaching a score of 20 or 30 acts as a psychological turning point, helping them regain the confidence and fluency of their prime," he wrote.
The former India head coach highlighted the importance of confidence, calling it a key to returning to form.
“The only cure that I know is to rekindle the thinking of your youth. That is easier to say than to do, but it does work. Confidence is an emotion – so if you can recreate that, there is no reason why you can’t reinvent yourself," Chappell remarked.
With the BGT currently tied at 1-1, India would expect Virat Kohli to rise to the occasion in the fourth and penultimate Test, starting on December 26.