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.

“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.

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.

Aaron Finch’s side were pummelled by India’s batsman and then struggled to launch a serious run-chase, leading some critics to suggest they aren’t up to the task of winning the tournament.

But former Australia captain Waugh, a two-time World Cup winner, is confident his country have 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.

The rest of the Australia line-up batted too slowly before India eased to victory with a flurry of late wickets as Finch’s side had to go for broke with the run-rate required reaching 11 an over.

But Maxwell backed Australia’s approach and, like Waugh, believes only minor changes are needed to allow them to match India and tournament favourites England.