Balbirnie: Big improvement needed with England looming

Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie admitted his side's batting must improve after they fell to a nine-wicket defeat to Sri Lanka in their Super 12 opener at the T20 World Cup.

Looking to build on their upset of West Indies, they instead set a simple target of 129 founded on Harry Tector's 45 and Sir Lanka romped home with five overs to spare.

"Obviously we didn't want to bat first. We were looking at 160 plus and we were well short of that," Balbirnie said.

"We were never really in the game. We knew they had the threat of spin on a used wicket and it certainly looked that way given the way the result has panned out.

"As a batting group we back ourselves to bat well first or second. We're going to have to look at ourselves and if we do bat first in the next game we need to put up a better fight."

Ireland's Super 12 campaign continues against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Wednesday.

"A lot of us wouldn't have played in a stadium like the MCG, it's one of the biggest in the world. We're very excited about that, especially playing against England," Balbirnie said.

"We haven't played them at T20 cricket in 10 or 11 years so that will be exciting in itself. It's a great city and one that we really enjoyed the prep period in."