LONDON: Steve Waugh insists Australia’s World Cup defeat against title rivals India won’t derail the holders’ bid to retain the trophy.

Australia were beaten for the first time in this year’s World Cup as India cruised to a 36-run win at The Oval on Sunday.

But former Australia captain Waugh is confident his country has enough strength in depth to make the necessary tweaks to get them back on track for a place in the semi-finals of the 10-team event.

“Australia won’t be too disappointed as they have time to dissect this loss, fine tune their process, tinker with batting orders and bowling options and manoeuvre things around before the semi-finals come around,” Waugh said. “This World Cup is wide open right now with up to six teams believing they have a chance to lift the Cup at Lord’s.”

One of the few Australia batsmen to show signs of being able to match India’s fire-power was Glenn Maxwell, who hit five fours in his 14-ball innings of 28 before paying the price for one aggressive stroke too many.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2019