Australia swaggered into the World Cup semi-finals with a 96-run demolition of Sri Lanka at SuperSport Park on Friday. It was a victory every bit as one-sided as the winning margin suggests and there might well be an argument for the International Cricket Council to hand the World Cup over to the Australians right now and let everyone else get on with an alternative championship for second place.
Australia’s win places them in the semi-finals after just one Super Six match (neither Sri Lanka nor Zimbabwe can match the 16 points already accumulated by Ricky Ponting’s side). The victory takes their current one-day winning streak to 13 matches and extends an unbeaten sequence of World Cup games to 14 games. The last time Australia lost a World Cup match was on May 23, 1999 at Leeds when they went down by 10 runs to Pakistan.
Last Sunday England gave Australia a run for their money in Port Elizabeth, but the Australians held their nerve to win by two wickets. At SuperSport Park on Friday the Australian barely gave Sri Lanka a sniff, battering out a mammoth 319 for five before Brett Lee ripped the top off the 1996 champions’ batting.
With the first 14 overs the innings, five of Sri Lanka’s batsmen were either back in the hut or in X-ray. Sanath Jayasuriya’s match, and perhaps his World Cup, was ended by the last ball of Lee’s first over which crashed into his left forearm. He has a badly bruised arm and, somewhat mysteriously, a chipped bone in his thumb.
Lee then took a return catch off Marvan Atapattu, had Mahela Jayawardene caught at the wicket off an outside edge and trapped Russell Arnold leg before. In between all this Glenn McGrath had bowled Hashan Tillekaratne.
After 13.3 overs, Sri Lanka were 48 for four (effectively for five with Jayasuriya at the hospital). All that remained was to add the finishing touches. Aravinda de Silva offered Sri Lanka’s token resistance with a wonderfully entertaining 92 as he took to Lee in the later afternoon, hitting the fast man to all parts of the ground before patting a tame return catch back to Bradd Hogg. It was very much a lone hand, however. The next highest score in the innings was Extras with 23 as Sri Lanka subsided to 223 for nine in 47.4 overs.
So dominant were Australia that it was sometimes difficult to believe that both teams had played on the same pitch. There seemed nothing in it for the bowlers when Australia took first strike. Chaminda Vaas, one of the bowlers of this World Cup, was hit out of the attack virtually every time he was given a bowl and neither were Sri Lanka’s spinners able to weave any kind of web.
Adam Gilchrist played to type, thumping away at everything from the start as he put on 75 with Mattie Hayden for the first wicket and then 105 for the second with Ricky Ponting. Australia galloped to 99 for one off their first 15 overs and the only question posed during the next 35 overs was how many more than 300 would Australia score in the end.
Gilchrist looked to have his century sewn up before being run out by Vaas’ direct hit for 99, but if this was a blow for the individual, it made precious little difference to the team effort. Ponting was in supreme form throughout his 114, hooking and driving with immense power in an innings that took him only 109 balls. Because he comes in after the thunderous hitting of Gilchrist and Hayden, Ponting’s prowess as a one-day batsman is sometimes overlooked, but the openers had set it up for him on Friday and he milked the opportunity for all it was worth.
There was also a 52 from Damien Martyn before the innings closed, but so well had the pitch played for Australia that you felt Sri Lanka might have a chance if Jayasuriya got going. He didn’t and Australia had other ideas about the nature of the pitch. From the start McGrath was able to gain steep bounce and both he and Lee found enough movement to overwhelm the Sri Lankan top order.
The Australians were even able to get away with a couple of dropped catches. Hayden missed De Silva in the gully before the Sri Lankan had scored and Hogg failed to hold onto a caught and bowled chance from Vaas. Both were difficult chances. The same, however, could not be said of Tillekaratne’s attempt to catch Martyn towards the end of the Australian innings.
Martyn hit Dilhara Fernando straight up in the air; Tillekaratne circled beneath it, got the sun in his eyes and simply pulled out of the catch. It was that sort of day for Sri Lanka who now need to beat either India or Zimbabwe (or possibly both) to qualify for the semi-finals.