Sri Lanka v England, Saturday, 6pm (UAE time)
Paul Farbrace concedes England have yet to find their best form at the World Twenty20 but takes heart from the fact that a semi-final place could be just one win away.
England’s assistant coach knows all about winning the competition, having led Sri Lanka to the title in Bangladesh two years ago.
And it his former side who await in Delhi on Saturday, in a game England need to take to have any chance of a knock-out berth.
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Farbrace accepted England have yet to put a complete performance together – with the batsmen bailing out the bowlers against South Africa and vice versa in an unconvincing victory over Afghanistan on Wednesday.
But he knows from experience that how a team start is less important than how they finish. “We know there are areas to improve on, we’re not going to hide,” he said after the 15-run win.
“We’re not shirking away from any performance. We’ve been honest, we didn’t get it right with the ball in the first two games and we didn’t bat well in the first 10 overs of the Afghanistan game.
“We were very disappointed with the way that we batted. There’s no fudging that. So we’ve only played half a game again, but we have won which is the most important thing.
“We’ve put ourselves in the position where if we play well against Sri Lanka and we’re able to win the game, we give ourselves a good chance of going through to the next stage.
“Then you’ve got to play well in the knock-out stages to win the competition.”
Talk of lifting the trophy may seem fanciful, particularly for a side who seemed destined for an early flight home when Afghanistan had them caught in the headlights at 57 for six.
“I’ve said many times that this team is an inexperienced team that needs to learn and develop, but we’ve got to win,” he said.
“That, for me, is the key thing. We’re trying to learn, we’re trying to develop, while winning at the same time.
“There will be chats about how we can take that forward, without saying we’re going to throw away everything we’ve done over the last 10 months in terms of moving our white-ball cricket forward.”
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