"Kohli is the most Australian of your cricketers. He messes with the opponent's head just like our blokes do," Dominic Henderson, an abalone diver from Port Lincoln, told me over breakfast. It was October 26—the morning after the Sydney ODI—and we were discussing the match at the Epicurean restaurant in the city's tallest building, the 75-storeyed Crown Towers.

Virat Kohli, as everyone knows, made 74 not out in the tie—the last in the three-match India-Australia series. But the knock had come after two ducks on the trot. Never before had the great man been in a position like that in his 305-ODI career. His other 16 ducks had all been spaced out; never had one followed another.

Ahead of the ODI, the overarching question then among most fans had been about how messed up Kohli's head pr

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