Earlier Australian Captain Ricky Ponting scored an excellant hundred to guide his team to get to 260 runs in the 50 overs. This was Ricky Ponting 5th World Cup hundred and 29th in ODI. Brad Haddin (53 runs) and David Hussey (38 runs) also provided good support to his captain to guide Australia to a competitive total.
Chasing the target of 261 for win,India got off to a great start.Both Sachin Tendulkar (53 runs) and Virendra Sehwag (15 runs) provided a good platform by putting on 44 runs for the first wicket before Sehwag miscuite a pull straight in the air in the 9th over. However Sachin Tendulkar kept his cool to reach his 93rd ODI fifty and in between he crossed 18000 run marks.
Gambhir scored a superb 50 runs off 64 balls before he was run out by Cameron White when Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh played out a comedy of errors Motera stadium crowd stunned in to the silence when M.S.Dhoni caught brilliantly by M.Clark at point on bowling of Brett Lee in the 38th over.
India still needed 74 runs to win in last 13 overs of play.
But Suresh Raina was involved in a brisk partnership of 74 runs off only 10.1 overs with Yuvraj for the sixth wicket.While Raina scored a quick-fire 34 off 28 balls, Yuvraj completed his fourth fifty in the tournament,consisting of eight fours. Together they both not only washed away the hopes Australia of winning a fourth consecutive world title,but also set up a mouth watering semi-final clash with Pakistan at Mohali.
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