Australia prick woeful West Indies' bubble and prepare for Pakistan

"West Indies or Waste Indies?" said the placard and now we know. Worst Indies even. Needing not just to beat Australia but to do so by at least 24 runs if they were to leapfrog Sri Lanka and make tomorrow's semi-final, they capitulated, all out for 105, with a dismal batting display that had Australian bowlers collecting wickets as casually as if picking shells from a beach. Australia knocked off the runs with ease for the loss of four wickets with 22 balls to spare. Long before the sun had set beyond the hillside and the lights took effect, the game was all but done. The crowd that had wended its way down the long roads into the valley that is Beausejour gamely partied on, athough much of the heart had gone from them. The final blow came when the local hero Darren Sammy, greeted rapturously, was caught and bowled first ball. Instead, on the back of this six-wicket win, it will be Sri Lanka who face an increasingly confident England tomorrow, thanks to their last-ball victory over India earlier yesterday, condemning Mahendra Singh Dhoni's team to an early exit and the prospect of some fierce condemnation at home. Australia, meanwhile, march relentlessly on and will face Pakistan here on Friday. Pakistan, the holders, are impossible to read but even that maverickoutfit will have to play stupendously well, with Australia faltering, to get to the final. Yesterday it was all a bit of a lark, perhaps not the test they would have liked. It took three balls of the match to prick the bubble of anticipation as Dirk Nannes bowled Chris Gayle, one player capable of shredding Australia's pace attack, off his pad. By the end of the fifth over Shivnarine Chanderpaul had been spectacularly caught at long-on and two overs later Dwayne Bravo was run out as Mitchell Johnson deflected a fierce straight drive on to the non-striker's stumps. It was that sort of day. The chief beneficiary of the middle-order benevolence was the legspinner Steven Smith who collected the wicket of Narsingh Deonarine with his second ball, and then in his third over, Kieron Pollard, possibly the most overhyped, overrated and overpaid cricketer in the world, and Sammy to finish with three for 20. The last hope, Ramnaresh Sarwan, drilled David Hussey's first ball to long-off for a top-scoring 26 and even a last wicket stand of 20 could scarcely delay the inevitable.