Australia vanquish Ireland by lunch, book semi-final berth

Australia became the first team in World Cup history to win a match before lunch when they crushed Ireland by nine wickets in a Super Eight game that was more fun than cricket at Kensington Oval here today.

Chasing a meagre 92 to win, Australia finished off the match in 12.2 overs and, in the process, became the first side in this World Cup to book a place in the semi-finals.

The 10,000-odd spectators were actually cursing the Australian team for ending the game so curtly denying them of a full day's fun.

But for the Australian side, cricket means business and every opposition are enemies to be annihilated at the shortest possible time. They did just that to Ireland in the most one-sided match of the tournament.

After restricting Ireland for 91, it was expected at least for the spectators that the Aussies would be dragging the match beyond lunch to give the spectators some value for their money.

But Aussie captain Ricky Ponting was in no such mood.

He held back man-in-form Matthew Hayden and instead sent struggling Michael Hussey to open the innings with Adam Gilchrist, who was in murderous mood till he was bowled by a Trent Johnstona delivery.

By then, Gilchrist had scored 34 runs and the Australians were flying in a manner as if they have an afternoon flight to catch to Greneda. Hussey took the opportunity to score some runs before the big match against Sri Lanka with both hands and contributed 30 from 41 balls.

Andrew Symonds was also promoted in the order to get some much-needed batting practice and scored 15 runs from nine balls.

Later talking to newspersons, Ponting said the next two matches would be big games and his team was prepared for that.

''I am happy that our bowlers did a fine job and we got some early wickets to make the job much easier.'' Man-of-the-match went to Glenn McGrath who broke the Ireland backbone by taking three wickets for just 17 runs.

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