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Sri Lanka meets Australia in Final

Sri Lanka will meet defending champions Australia in the ICC Cricket World Cup final after the Australia beat South Africa by 7 seven wickets in the second semi-final match.

For the second time in this tournament South Africa lost to the defending champions only that this time the defeat was heavier. None of the South African batsmen could manage a half century with eight of them only managing single digits including captain Graham Smith who could only get two runs with all rounder Jacques Kallis only scoring only five and that in a way explains South Africa's lowly total of 149.

Glenn McGrath took the wickets of Ashwell Prince and Mark Boucher before they could register a run. Watching this match, one couldn't believe that this was a tussle between the number one and two ranked teams because the erratic South Africans looked out of sorts.

On the other hand the Australian bowlers did a wonderful job with McGrath taking three wickets and Shaun Tait four. The excellent bowling explains why Australia has managed to bowl out every team they have played the full match in this tournament. The only team not bowled out was Bangladesh but this was a reduced overs match.

This now sets up a very interesting match up against the Sri Lanka team who must be bubbling with confidence after beating New Zealand in the first semi-final. While South Africa has lost three times at the semi-final stage, for the Kiwis it is actually five and they lost a match in which they threatened to win up to around the 20th over.

Whilst Austrlia are hot favourites to retain the Cup, I think Sri Lanka will prove a handful and I won't be surprised if there is an upset. Sri Lanka will bring their bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga who missed the Super 8 match between the two teams and I am sure this trio will cause problems to the Australian batsmen.

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