For the first time in weeks, the Indian team management seemed to be in a state of worry before entering the post-match presser. Soon after suffering a shocking 76-run defeat to South Africa, the management geared up for damage control.Dismissing concerns over the top-order batters and the team selection, assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak accepted that the loss was unacceptable given the amount of cricket the Indians have played. While Kotak said that it was an off day for the side, ten Doeschate called for an assessment from the Indian batters.“I think it needs a little bit of assessment and application and it’s a fine line between putting the reins and stopping guys from playing the way they play but I think it’s come to the point now where the intervention of saying ‘guys, there’s different ways to go about a chase, even setting a score.’ And like I say, we’ve spoken about it a lot, but we haven’t implemented it across the board and I think that’s cost us in some of the performances with the bat so far,” said ten Doeschate.The Indian team has to win against Zimbabwe and West Indies in their next two games to keep their semifinal hopes alive in the ICC T20 World Cup. A below-par performance against the Proteas is worrisome for the Indian batters as the opposition teams’ plans have so far been successful against the top-order.Left-handed openers Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan have been troubled by part-time off-spinners. No. 3 Tilak Varma has been unable to convert his slow starts into a big knock. “I’ve sort of banged the drum about it, but I think the biggest challenge to us is finding a way to play on wickets that are not typical to what we’re playing on. They’re all fantastic players. So, do you stick or twist? You stick with the guys who we feel have performed really well over the last 18 months and who are maybe shy of a few runs now? Or do we twist and bring Sanju (Samson), who’s also a fantastic player and obviously helps tactically with having a right-hander at the top of the order and I’m sure that’ll be a talking point over the next few days going into these two very important games,” said ten Doeschate.Perhaps Sanju’s absence was not a big concern against South Africa. The big talking point was the exclusion of Axar Patel, which took one and all by surprise. “Gautam (Gambhir) and Surya (Kumar Yadav) had a clear chat with Axar. He is a world class player, everyone knows his quality and being the deputy of the team, he understood the discussion between the trio. The plan was to bring in Washington Sundar to bowl in the powerplay, but it didn’t happen as (Jasprit) Bumrah was right on target. Again, it was an on-field decision, we really can’t think over it,” said Kotak.With a net run rate of negative 3.8, the hosts really need to rethink their strategies for the upcoming matches. “It was a chaseable total on any given day. I can understand if the target was above 200 or so… but 180-185 can be chased on this wicket. The players are not inexperienced, but it was just one of our off days. We have to introspect for a few days and come back with a plan, a better one,” said Kotak.He also discussed the poor run of the Indian batters. “When a player is already down, you just can’t give me 15 things to work upon, that’s my coaching philosophy. Had it been a gap of 10-12 days, we could have worked upon various things. In the current situation, it’s better to support the player with better conditions and mental peace. However, this was not the performance we expected. Loss of early wickets, openers falling to off-spinners, I mean the next few days, we have a lot to work upon,” he added.