Australians in Kohli's head, says Hayden

Former Australia batsman Matthew Hayden believes a marathon home season is contributing to Virat Kohli’s bizarre dismissals and India’s seismic batting collapses against Australia.

Kohli has endured a horror start to the Border-Gavaskar series, dismissed for scores of 0, 13 and 12 – the latter two without offering a stroke – while his side is yet to post 200 against an Australian side whose spinners have dominated.

National Selector Mark Waugh described Kohli’s shot on day one as a “brain fade”, and Hayden says Australia have got in the head of the India skipper in his 11th Test of the season.

Since September, India have played Tests against New Zealand (three), England (five, and six limited-over matches), Bangladesh (one) and are into a second Test of a four-match series against Australia, which they currently trail 1-0 after being pummelled in Pune on a pitch that was rated as ‘poor’ by the ICC Match Referee Chris Broad.

Hayden says the combination of excellent Australian bowling, an exhausting schedule and two difficult pitches has contributed to Kohli’s worst start to a Test series since his first in late 2011.

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“It’s been a pretty long summer for India, so far,” Hayden told cricket.com.au before play on day two in Bengaluru as Australia chase India’s first innings total of 189.

“Their board has asked them to play a lot of cricket and once you get behind the momentum of the game it’s often hard to claw back.

“I’m not saying they can’t claw back.

“We (Australia) are gloating at the moment, it’s 0-40 at the start of the day but they (India) are very optimistic and they should be because this wicket is a very challenging one to bat on.

“It’s taken India by surprise in the first game just how diabolical that surface was in Pune and this one as well, which is traditionally such a good batting track.

“We had beautiful day yesterday, it’s a small ground, it’s often got lots of runs and then it breaks up and starts to deteriorate as the game goes on.

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“We (Australia) are in Virat’s mind. We’re in the whole country’s mind, actually, because (there) was such a huge build up to this series.

“(India) have played a lot of Test match cricket up to this point but this is the series they really wanted to dominate and they’re just not getting their way currently.”

Kohli had been in imperious form leading into the series having scored double-centuries against each of New Zealand, England and Bangladesh.

That form was been in reverse since the Australians arrived, but his captor on day one, Lyon, says he expects the prolific batsman to rebound quickly.

“To be able to take his wicket today was exceptional,” Lyon said after play on day one.

“But we know this series is a massive series, a long series, and he's a world-class batter.

“We expect him to bounce back bigger and better.”