India captain Virat Kohli questioned his team's batting mindset in the second innings after their embarrassing capitulation inside three days of the opening day-night test against Australia on Saturday.

India began day three 62 runs ahead with nine wickets in hand but soon the wheels came off their second innings and they slumped to their lowest ever innings score of 36 at the Adelaide Oval.

The usually articulate Kohli was at a loss for words to describe the feeling after the demoralising eight-wicket defeat in the series opener.

“It's very hard to find words to express how everyone's feeling in the change room,” Kohli, who will miss the last three tests to attend the birth of his first child in India, said at the presentation ceremony.

“When you work hard for two days, you play some good cricket to get yourself in a good position, and then literally in an hour you put yourself in a position where it's impossible to win.

“To get 100 ahead with wickets in hand would have been a good position to be in. But it's something that needs to be reflected on and learn from and we need to put in better performances going forward.”

Kohli topscored for India in the first innings with a patient 74 but managed only four in the second, falling to a reckless shot.

The 32-year-old felt the Indian batsmen should have played with the same positive mindset they had showed during their first innings total of 244.

“They bowled similar areas in the first innings as well, but probably our mindset and intent was to get runs, even if it's ones and twos,” Kohli said.

“To be honest, there were some good balls, but I don't think the ball did something drastic in the morning.

“It was just the mindset that put us into positions where the ball took edges and it was pretty evident in the way we went about things, just losing one (wicket) after the other.”