Published: Feb 23, 2026, 04:01 PM (IST)
Edited: Feb 23, 2026, 04:01 PM (IST)
India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate expressed deep disappointment after the team’s heavy 76-run defeat to South Africa in their first Super 8 match of the T20 World Cup 2026 on Sunday in Ahmedabad. India ended their 12-match winning streak and were bowled out for just 111 while chasing 188.
“Very disappointed with the performance. But, when you set up or set out to win a World Cup, don’t expect someone to come deliver the World Cup to you halfway through the competition. So we understand we’ve made a lot of mistakes tonight. We understand you’re probably allowed one mess-up in this phase of the competition,” ten Doeschate told reporters in the post-match press conference.
With this loss, India now face a tough challenge to defend their title from 2024. They will almost certainly need to win their next two Super 8 matches against Zimbabwe and West Indies to reach the semi-finals. Even one win might be enough if South Africa remain unbeaten.
“We’ve messed up on a grand scale, and now the onus is on this group of guys to turn around and put in two solid performances against Zimbabwe and the West Indies. Obviously with the way the group goes, you need at least four points to get through now, and it’s going to need two big performances and a big bounce back from everyone involved,” he added.
Ten Doeschate explained the team’s decision to play Washington Sundar instead of vice-captain Axar Patel against South Africa.
“In our analysis, we thought the biggest threat was going to come from Quinton and Ryan Rickleton and David Miller. And when you can only choose one of the two (between Washington Sundar and Axar Patel), we thought of someone who can bowl in the powerplay.
“Axar obviously occasionally bowls in the powerplay, but we feel we’ve got Washi to a point where he’s found a way of being effective in the powerplay, and he obviously didn’t bowl in the powerplay tonight, so it looks like we’ve purely gone on who’s going to bowl through the middle, in which case you would choose Axar.”
“But the strategy was around that and I think in a tournament like this you want or you expect all players to understand that the best intentions were trying to pick the best 11 to win the game and I hope Axar takes it in the same spirit as well,” he said.
The assistant coach spoke about the poor form of openers Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma.
“I certainly won’t make excuses for Abhi or Tilak, they don’t need excuses made for them, but I think Abhi’s preparation coming into the World Cup with the food poisoning that he had at one stage has obviously hampered his progress in terms of where we want him to be at this phase.
“You want him to be up and running and sort of confident in his swing and confident in his game plan, and when you score three zeros, that is going to start weighing on you. I saw some really good signs on Friday night in the nets; I think I mentioned it in the presser then. But he looks a little bit short, and our job as the coaching staff is to pull that right. We’ve got four days to do that,” he concluded.
India now have three days to recover and prepare for their next Super 8 match against Zimbabwe. The team will need to bounce back strongly to keep their title defence alive.
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