Do off-field controversries affect a player's form ?

[Ram]

Is it any co-incidence, that players like Ponting, Symmonds are all struggling to score runs this series ? As much as these players claim to be professionals, its only natural that off-field controversies affect their mindset and both Ponting and Symmonds have been at the fore-front of news, mostly for non cricketing reasons. Is the too much media glare, fan following, finally getting to the players ?

[Mr. Wicket]

No. Australia are just in decline. :D Actually, it depends on players. Warne and Tendulkar were strong enough men to shake it all off and perform superbly right through controversies. Some like Runnertunga seemed to feed off controversies, pissing people off and then doing well to infuriate them. Others like Azhar and Thorpe would be openly affected, to the point that Thorpe could not even play int'l cricket for a while due to his divorce issues.

[Cricketics]

i don't think the form of punter and roy has anything to do with controveriez that have happend during India-Aus series or later.. just in adelaide punter hit a century too.. he is just going through a bad patch.. so as roy.. however @ thread, i say it dependz on player... some off-field controversiez can kill onez form as the player is just not able to get over it..but some as u know are pretty mature enough to ignore the controversy and concentrate on their game..