Australia's Damien Martyn celebrates his team's victory over India after their cricket match in the ICC Champions Trophy tournament in Mohali yesterday. - Reuters

MOHALI, India (CMC):

Australia got a well measured unbeaten half-century from Damien Martyn and beat India by six wickets in their decisive ICC Champions Trophy Group A match yesterday that sent them into the semi-finals.

Choosing to bat, India tallied 249 for eight off their 50 overs and Australia strode to an emphatic victory at 252 for four off 45.4 overs, winning with 26 balls to spare at the Punjab CA Stadium.

The result eliminated the hosts and sent Australia to the top of Group A and into a semi-final meeting with New Zealand on Wednesday here in Mohali.

West Indies, second to Australia (on run rate) in Group A, will play South Africa in the second semi-final on Thursday in Jaipur.

Opener Virender Sehwag (65) and captain Rahul Dravid (52) got good scores for India.

Veteran Glenn McGrath led Australia's bowling with two for 34 off his 10 overs, backed up by Brett Lee (2-54) and Nathan Bracken (2-56).

Mohammed Kaif contributed 30 in India's reasonable score, but Australia's batting was too strong and the World Cup holders sailed to a fairly unchallenged victory.

Man-of-the-Match Damien Martyn accelerated from a watchful start to belt 73 off 104 balls with eight boundaries in leading Australia's run chase.

He added 74 runs for the third wicket with his captain Ricky Ponting who stroked 58, while Shane Watson 50 also did well, adding 61 for the first wicket with Adam Gilchrist 23 and an even 50 for the second wicket with Ponting.

Australia were solid in the field in restricting India to a sub-250 total when it seemed - at one stage - that they might get up to around 270.

Sehwag, scoring freely with square drives and cuts, was almost unstoppable at the top of the innings after losing star batsman Sachin Tendulkar for only 10.