Cricket: India crush Sri Lanka to sweep into semi-finals

7.10am

JOHANNESBURG - India stormed into the World Cup semi-finals this morning (NZ time) with a 183-run win over Sri Lanka in their Super Six match at The Wanderers.

Javagal Srinath wrecked the batting with four of the first five wickets as Sri Lanka tumbled to 109 all out from 23 overs. It was India's biggest win over the 1996 champions and Sri Lanka's second lowest World Cup score.

Srinath, 33, captured two wickets in his first over and finished with four for 35 from nine fierce and disciplined overs. Left-arm fast bowler Ashish Nehra finished with identical figures from seven.

Chasing India's formidable 292 for six, built on Sachin Tendulkar's commanding 97, Sri Lanka were soon in deep trouble.

Srinath removed his first three victims for ducks, claiming Marvan Atapattu and Jehan Mubarak in his first over before trapping in-form Aravinda De Silva lbw to make it 15 for four in the fourth over.

Left-armer Zaheer Khan dismissed Mahela Jayawardene lbw for a duck and captain Sanath Jayasuriya (12) hit Srinath straight to Mohammad Kaif at cover.

Srinath's performance followed yet another Tendulkar master class.

The Indian maestro agonisingly missed a record fifth World Cup century but helped India amass a daunting total after Jayasuriya put the opposition in to exploit any early life in the pitch after overnight rain.

Tendulkar was out for 97, edging a sweep against de Silva to jubilant wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara after moving past his previous World Cup record aggregate of 523 scored at the 1996 World Cup. He has scored 571 runs so far at the 2003 tournament at an average of 71.38 with a strike rate of 90.3

The India opener, who was dismissed for 98 in a first round match against Pakistan, said he was disappointed to miss a century again.

"But I'm very excited to be in the semi-finals," he said. "It was a good track to bat on and Javagnal and Ashish bowled really well. To be able to extract so much pace and movement was something extraordinary."

Tendulkar shared an opening partnership of 153 with Virender Sehwag, who recorded his highest score of the tournament with 66.

Yet another left-arm pace bowler Chaminda Vaas, the tournament's leading wicket taker, led a bowling fightback with consecutive maidens to Tendulkar before returning to bowl captain Saurav Ganguly (48) and Yuvraj Singh (5) in his final spell.

India's seventh consecutive victory ensured them of a semi-final place along with defending champions Australia. Both teams have 16 points.

"I thought it was the perfect game of cricket for us," said Ganguly. "We batted brilliantly and then bowled superbly, we have stuck together as a team and worked hard as a team. Everybody has fired."

Sri Lanka's semi-final hopes now depend on a Zimbabwe victory over Kenya on Wednesday followed by a win themselves over the Zimbabweans on Saturday.

"We didn't bowl in the right areas," said Jayasuriya. "We bowled all over the place and there were some easy runs."

Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore lashed out at his players, accusing them of lacking fighting spirit.

"We thought we had a little bit of fight in the previous game against Australia which I was hoping was going to rebound into this game, but boy, I was pretty wrong.

"We weren't on the same park today," he told a news conference.

"The boys got themselves into this situation and now they must get themselves out of it," Whatmore added.

"We've had a talk about it already. We can assist all we can but they know that ultimately you win or you lose by what happens in the middle.

"We all take responsibility...but at the end of the day the ones that get the pats on the back or kicks up the bums are the guys in the middle.

"They're going to have to really dig deep."

- REUTERS

INDIA-SRI LANKA

India:

S.Tendulkar c Sangakkara b de Silva 97

V.Sehwag c de Silva b Muralitharan 66

S.Ganguly b Vaas 48

M.Kaif b Muralitharan 19

Yuvraj Singh b Vaas 5

R.Dravid not out 18

D.Mongia c de Silva b Muralitharan 9

Harbhajan Singh not out 7

Extras (b-4 lb-10 w-7 nb-2) 23

Total (for six wickets, 50 overs) 292

Fall of wickets: 1-153 2-214 3-243 4-251 5-265 6-277

Did not bat: Z.Khan, J.Srinath, A.Nehra.

Bowling: Vaas 10-2-34-2, Nissanka 6-0-49-0, Fernando 10-1-61-0, Muralitharan 10-0-46-3, Jayasuriya 3-0-27-0, de Silva 6-0-32-1, Arnold 5-0-30-0

Sri Lanka

M.Atapattu c Kaif b Srinath 0

S.Jayasuriya c Kaif b Srinath 12

J.Mubarak c Dravid b Srinath 0

M.Jayawardene lbw b Khan 0

A.de Silva lbw b Srinath 0

K.Sangakkara c Yuvraj Singh b Nehra 30

R.Arnold lbw b Khan 8

C.Vaas c Tendulkar b Nehra 9

P.Nissanka c Kaif b Nehra 0

D.Fernando not out 13

M.Muralitharan c Kaif b Nehra 16

Extras (b-1 lb-5 w-14 nb-1) 21

Total (all out, 23 overs) 109

Fall of wickets: 1-2 2-2 3-3 4-15 5-40 6-59 7-75 8-78 9-78

Bowling: Khan 7-0-33-2, Srinath 9-1-35-4, Nehra 7-1-35-4

Result: India won by 183 runs.


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