Veteran South African player AB de Villiers advised Virat Kohli not to get too involved in battles with the opposition players and the crowd when having a poor form. De Villiers’ comments came after Kohli faced a dismal tour of Australia, scoring only 190 runs at an average of under 24 in five Tests as well.

Talking about Virat Kohli’s struggles on a live show through his X handle, AB de Villiers said as quoted by India Today: “It takes a lot of character, a lot of hunger, lot of hours in the nets. I think the thing is to reset your mind, everytime. I think with Virat, he gets involved with the battle on the field. That’s one of his biggest strengths and it can also be a weakness. During this series, we saw him have individual battles with some of the players, the crowd got under his skin. Virat loves the fight, but when you’re not in the form of your life, it’s best to get rid of those things.”

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“As a batter, it is to reset every single and realise every ball is an event and just forget about the bowler. I think sometimes Virat forgets about that because of his fighting spirit and the nature of the man wanting to be involved and show the whole of India he is there to fight for them,” he shared.

AB de Villiers also backed Virat Kohli to overcome his outside offstump weakness against pace bowlers that troubled him throughout the
Australian series as well. However, Kohli was dismissed by nicking balls outside off-stump off the Aussie pacers in eight out of his nine innings as well.

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“Of course, he can [overcoming outside off-stump weakness]. Every single batter in the world has got some sort of a weakness. For me it was the straight ball hitting my pads. Even towards the back end of my career and in the form of my life, all the experience that I needed to go out and score runs,” said AB de Villiers. “I remember a series against England. I started off well and scored runs in Durban, everything was brilliant. Then I ran into James Anderson and Stuart Broad with the new ball.”