Fletcher - Patience is key

Duncan Fletcher has urged England's batsmen to show more patience early in their innings if they are to succeed in setting more competitive totals during the World Cup.

England's seven-wicket defeat to Australia was their third to Test-standard opposition in the tournament and leaves them needing to beat Bangladesh, South Africa and West Indies if they are to have any chance of progressing to the last four.

"If we're going at six an over it's difficult to score at that rate and they've got to learn they have a little bit of time to have a bit of patience to rebuild and regroup," said Fletcher. "Sometimes we've gone in and the new batter has tried to score at six an over, but on these wickets it's not easy."

On each occasion against Test-class opponents England have failed to reach 250 - Sunday's display being undermined by another batting collapse after reaching a promising 163 for two with 20 overs remaining.

But England coach Fletcher believes it is a barrier they can cross and insists they can look to the performance of Australia's Michael Clarke for inspiration.

Clarke took 42 balls to hit his first boundary but helped forge an important century stand with captain Ricky Ponting and finished unbeaten on 55 off 63 balls to help Australia clinch victory with 16 balls remaining.

Fletcher added: "If you look at Michael Clarke he showed a lot of patience and that's the key - show some patience and don't panic. It's important slowly to build momentum.

"Sometimes you go in there and you can find the gaps, but other times you have to work out which angles you can hit and which angles you can't hit.

"But the longer you stay out there, the easier it gets and Clarke showed it. When (Ricky) Ponting was batting freely he was just occupying one end and slowly got himself into nick."