Australians celebrate after Sri Lanka's Hashan Tillakaratne (left) was dismissed by Brett Lee for three. Australia won by 48 runs under the Duckworth/Lewis system yesterday. - DellmarPORT ELIZABETH, South Africa (AP):
DEFENDING CHAMPIONS Australia beat Sri Lanka by 48 runs in a rain-interrupted semi-final at St. George's Park yesterday to qualify for their third consecutive World Cup final.
Australia improved their record winning roll to 16 in one-dayers and, once again, a pace attack spearheaded by Brett Lee's three wickets battered and bruised the Sri Lankans.
Chasing 213 runs for an upset, Sri Lanka slumped to 123 for seven in 38.1 overs before rain ended the match. The 1996 champions needed 172 to win at the time of the interruption, according to the Duckworth-Lewis method for rain-enforced revisions.
After Andrew Symonds' unbeaten 91 dug Australia out of trouble and helped them reach their highest total in three matches here -- 212 for seven in 50 overs -- McGrath and Lee reduced Sri Lanka to 78 for seven after 25 overs.
It was a mere formality from there.
"It was vital to get early wickets," said skipper Ricky Ponting. "We took wickets and kept it very tight. Sri Lanka were always under fair bit of pressure."
Ponting said he always backed his team to win after posting what he thought was a borderline total.
"It was a very good win again today I thought. The partnership in the middle really set us up to a respectable total on the board.
"Then our bowlers came out and did the job very, very well. In all, it was a very pleasing day for us."
Lee took 3-35 in eight overs to increase his tally to 20 wickets for the tournament.
Sri Lanka never recovered from the destructive six-over opening burst by Lee, when he bowled at almost 100 mph and removed Marvan Atapattu (14), Hashan Tillakaratne (three) and Avishka Gunawardene (1). Glenn McGrath removed Sanath Jayasuriya and Andy Bichel threw down the stumps to run out Aravinda de Silva as Sri Lanka slumped to 51 for five.
Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore said the only way to beat Australia was to match them for confidence.
"You have seen clear evidence of a team that is playing with confidence and somehow or the opposition also has to be confident -- with a sufficient degree of skill obviously -- but with the right confidence you can win."
Jayasuriya said the batting lineup again crumbled, like it did in the 96-run loss to the Aussies in the opening Super Six match.
"We let ourselves down today," said Jayasuriya. "Again, the batting let us down really badly, the middle order collapsed again."
The bowling was much better, with Jayasuriya and de Silva getting two wickets apiece and Chaminda Vaas picking up 3-34 to increase his total to 23 for the tournament, a new World Cup record. Australian legspinner Shane Warne and New Zealand paceman Geoff Allott shared the old record, both taking 20 wickets at the last World Cup in England.
"I think the bowlers bowled really well, and the fielders and we restricted them to 212," Jayasuriya said. ""'m happy with the way we bowled; We did well for 50 per cent of the match, for the other 50, unfortunately we couldn't do it."
