"To tell you the truth it doesn't worry me one little bit," he said, having long since dispensed with the platitudes in press conferences. "They obviously had some you-beaut plan going into the game, to rest a couple of the best players, but that's fine with us. We'll take a comprehensive win against Sri Lanka this close to the finals.

"I don't know their reasons and I don't care. It's out of our control. We put our best team on the park to win the game and we clearly finished on top which is great. If they want to make it through and win the World Cup they are more than likely going to have to play us again at some stage. They've got to bounce back from what we've done to them, but that's for them to worry about, not us."

Sri Lanka will face all sorts of accusations in the coming days of bringing the game into disrepute and of devaluing the World Cup with their tactics. But if the shielding of their star bowlers pays any sort of dividends come the business end of the competition, then hindsight will not only forgive them but thank them as well. Australia, for the eighth match running, learned little of relevance about their opponents, and once again, their former world No. 1 batsman, Michael Hussey, was left to fester in the pavilion. His event has stalled at a mere 50 runs from 72 balls faced.

They managed to get our score pretty easily and our bowlers didn't look that penetrative, but I don't think they bowled particularly well either Mahela Jayawardene

"It must have been a fairly frustrating tournament for him," Ponting said in a statement that contained the only glimmer of compassion he was willing to emit all day. "The top-order guys have done the job, but there is going to be a time in this tournament when Andrew Symonds, Hussey and maybe Brad Hodge are going to have to do some very important batting for us." Sri Lanka are determined that that moment should come in the final in 12 days.

For that to happen, however, they will need to raise their game to levels higher than their second-string managed, and it was a serious concern for Jayawardene that his batsmen folded quite as readily as they did on a fairly blameless pitch. Ponting would have batted first had he won the toss, and so for Sri Lanka to be all out for 226, with a collapse of 5 for 17 undermining their recovery from early setbacks, was not the message that Jayawardene had hoped to send out.

"We know we can compete but we are disappointed with the way we played today," Jayawardene said. "We made a lot of mistakes and when you do that against a quality side they will definitely punish you. Yes, they managed to get our score pretty easily and our bowlers didn't look that penetrative, but I don't think they bowled particularly well either, given the conditions."

A total of 250 might have turned this into a contest, but Nathan Bracken pulled Sri Lanka's strings in an exemplary four-wicket stint, and Shaun Tait bounced back from a scattergun first spell to take two crucial wickets with his out-and-out hostility. "Every game we've tried to make a bit of a statement and we've done it again," Ponting said. "The only team we haven't bowled out is Bangladesh and that was over 22 overs."

It makes very interesting reading for Ponting to say that we had our best team on the park, but what about the time you were rotating your fast bowlers in spite of a lot of criticism and this happened only last year. So whats
the difference between "resting" and "rotating". I dont see any difference. Countries should be allowed to run their own affairs and that means picking their teams without interference from Ponting, Michael Holding or Ian Smith among others. I have followed the World Cup from day one and listened to all these commentators. The only guy I think gives an unbiased opinion is Ian Bishop - bully for him. All the others seem to change like the direction of the wind. They all appear to be unbiased but the moment their team is on the park they become one-eyed as Cyclops. Bish is the only guy who plays it down the middle and I have a lot of time for him. Michael Atherton is another who appears to be impartial. Cricket needs a lot of luck as well as skill. I have seen some of the dreadful umpiring decisions and look forward to the day when some of these decisions will be taken out of their hands and processed by television. I know a lot of people will not agree with me but I see that will be the only way you will get a "very fair" decision without any "human error" creeping into play. Roll on Sri Lanka I hope you go all the way and win the World Cup. If you dont you would have given it your best shot. I like the game of cricket played as a sport not to have arrogant guys shoving smaller players around and thinking that that they are far superior because they speak a form of English. A lot of these cricketers from the sub continent speak more than one language. I would like to hear some of our so-called "better cricketers" try to do that. Thanks for the opportunity of allowing me to let of some steam.

I'll back Mahela & co.that is the tactics they should use in the world cup.I would have kept Jayasuriya give Marvan a chance.Hope Marvan play the Ireland game and see how he goes. Tharanga should play Semis as he had done well against kiwis. Aussies may be furious 'cos they have to play against unpredictable SA.Don't worry Australia we will pay back what u want on 28th but be careful from SA.
Lion

The Lankans played the game by the rules. The team of 11 players were selected from the pool of 15 players that the ICC has approved. The Lankans are within their right to select whom they want to play and when they want to play, it does now matter whether they were playing aussies or bermuda. Those who critisize the move by the Lankan team management has no right to comment on the team selection and the tactics implied by them. The Lankans are here to win the world cup and they would do everything within the rules of the game to see that they just achieve that and who cares what Ian Chappel or some one else say about the Lankan team selection, afterall why should the Lankans play to the whims and fancies of out siders.

Sri Lanka, plays the game of Cricket, most other countries, think it is,"Rollerball", a fight to the death. It has it's pro's and con's.
The Lankan top order, is still vulnerable. The toss plays too much of significance, specially, at an early start.
Lanka has probably the best bowling attack, in the world, due to it's variety and must use it, to it's advantage.
Most umpires are biased and should be replaced by the camera's.
This should have happened twenty years, ago.
Selection of any team, is the team's priority, not the biased commentators.
No talk of how, Bond was rested by the Kiwi's against Australia.