Merciless Australia trounce Sri Lanka
GRENADA: Australia could have taken it easy against Sri Lanka.
It had already qualified for the World Cup semifinals and its opponent at Grenada National Stadium on Monday was without its three leading bowlers.
Instead, its bowling attack tore through one of the most powerful batting lineups in the competition with a spell of three wickets for one run in 14 balls and its batsmen then knocked off the winning runs with more than seven overs to spare.
"Every game we play we try to make a bit of a statement on the whole event and we did it again today," captain Ricky Ponting said. "You talk about Sri Lanka leaving some of their better players out, but they're only bowlers left out.
"They had their strongest batting lineup in and we still restricted them."
Australia lost the toss but still bowled out Sri Lanka, which has been touted as the side best-equipped to stop Australia winning a third straight World Cup, for 226.
Man-of-the-match Nathan Bracken took four wickets for just 19 runs, including both Sri Lanka openers.
Australia then cruised to 232 for three for a seven-wicket Super 8s win in what could be a rehearsal for the final.
Sri Lanka, which crushed another supposed contender New Zealand by six wickets last week, was again without injured paceman Lasith Malinga but still opted to rest left-armer Chaminda Vaas and star spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.
Captain Mahela Jayawardene denied the move was to stop Australia getting too familiar with its attack. The two teams could later meet up in a repeat of the 1996 final, which Sri Lanka won.
With just a 15-man squad from which to draw a team, he said he was simply resting the pair and mindful of the left ankle ligament injury Malinga had picked up in training.
"We never devalued the game," Jayawardene said. "We couldn't sustain another injury like what happened to Lasith."
With Sri Lanka's first-string attack missing, Ponting and Andrew Symonds shared an unbeaten fourth-wicket stand of 106 to take Australia to 232-3.
Ponting finished the match with a six for 66 not out and Symonds scored 63 to seal a routine win. Both hit half centuries.
"Right at this moment in the tournament for us it's all about momentum," Ponting said. "We've played some good cricket and we've got some good momentum behind us so far and we're looking to carry that into the finals."
Australia's 20th straight victory in the competition going back to the 1999 final was almost meaningless in terms of the championship because both teams had already qualified for the semifinals.
Brief hope
Jayawardene hit 72 after his side had slumped to 27-3 under the bowling of Bracken and Glenn McGrath. He rebuilt the innings alongside Chamara Silva, who struck 64 in a fourth-wicket stand of 140.
It was Jayawardene's 38th one-day half century and seemed to have rallied the team before the four wickets fell for 17 runs to make it 184-8.
Tait "is an attacking bowler. They wanted him to take wickets - they've given him a free hand to do that," Jayawardene said. "He can be expensive as well, but he picked up two important wickets when it mattered. None of us had played him before."
Australia openers Hayden and Gilchrist then reached 69 off 11 overs, and although Arnold got rid of both and Clarke fell to Malinga Bandara, Muralitharan's replacement, that simply brought Symonds to the crease.
Agencies
(China Daily 04/18/2007 page24)
