moeen ali
Moeen Ali helped save England's blushes with a Player of the Match performance against Afghanistan in the ICC T20 World Cup 2016 Getty

England's poor performance with the bat against Afghanistan in their last game on 23 March has got assistant coach Paul Farbrace worried, with the Englishman warning them that they need to adapt to conditions in New Delhi more quickly ahead of an important ICC T20 World Cup 2016 clash against Sri Lanka on 26 March.

England's batting struggled against the Afghanistan bowling attack, on a pitch which actually did not do much. Slipping to 85 for seven, the Three Lions had Moeen Ali and David Willey to thank, with the two batsmen putting up a valuable 57-run partnership off just 33 balls for the eighth wicket. This partnership was eventually the difference between the two sides.

"We were very disappointed with the way we batted. There is no fudging that, we didn't adapt to the conditions. We didn't work out that the ball was skidding on and played for a turn that wasn't there", Farbrace said as quoted by the Daily Mail.

"The Afghans bowled in the right way, wicket to wicket, and encouraged us to hit across the ball, we did and lost wickets.

"There certainly will have been a decent discussion at the end of the game, and there will probably be more, through practice leading up to Saturday. We know we've got areas to improve, we are not going to hide behind anything. We've got to keep working hard on our all round game. We played half a game again, but we won, which is the most important thing," he added.

England are scheduled to face Sri Lanka, on 26 March at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium, a team who Farbrace – as their former coach – knows too well.

"They are capable of beating anyone on their day. Between Trevor Bayliss and myself we know a fair bit about them and their players, but our focus will be on us and what we need to do and how we need to win the game," he stressed.

England are currently second in Group 1 of the tournament, with four points from three games played so far.

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