India’s veteran defender Sandesh Jhingan feels there were a lot of good lessons from Australia’s loss. India suffered a 2-0 loss in their group B match of the AFC Asian Cup against Australia at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar on Saturday.

The Blue Tigers showed all the resistance in the first half to keep Socceroos at bay but the latter took a lead in the 50th minute when Jackson Irvine scored. After 23 minutes, Jordan Bos doubled Australia’s lead to put his team in front.

Sandesh expressed his disappointment after the defeat but he is optimistic that the team will bounce back stronger.

“Of course, we are disappointed with the defeat. You’re playing a team who went to the Round of 16 in the World Cup, so we can expect what happened today. A lot of good points, a lot of good lessons to learn from it,” stated Jhingan when speaking to ISL Media.

Expressing optimism towards the upcoming matches and backing the team, he added, “We got two more games, it’s all about recovery now. Recover and get better, and then Uzbekistan and Syria and we aim to qualify for the next round. We stick to that, we keep our heads high, we stay confident and as I always say, the sky’s the limit for this batch.”

Jhingan was superb in his performance against Australia and led the defensive line with a great onus.

He shared, “If the team wins, I had a great game, if the team loses, I had a bad game. That’s it. It’s all about the team. Of course, I want to contribute as much as I can which will help the team to win. But, I am as good as the team, so if the team loses, I am a loser today.”

Analyzing the match, the 30-year-old said, “In the first half we created decent chances, of course, we dropped back at certain moments which was bound to happen, but we defended well at certain moments. Just these lessons, we gotta learn from them, we gotta play them more often.”

India will next take on Uzbekistan at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Qatar on Thursday in their second match of the tournament.