Safs get berth, England the boot

Become the last team to enter semi finals, could meet Australia

South Africa marched into the cricket World Cup semi-final with a nine-wicket trouncing of England, whose players were booed off the field by their own supporters.

After Andrew Hall’s best ever one-day figures of 5-18 reduced England to a paltry 154 all out in Barbados on Tuesday, South Africa raced to the victory target with more than 30 overs to spare.

The fourth team to reach the semi-final, South Africa are likely to face Australia, who are on a streak of 20 World Cup victories. That would mean the other semi-final would be Sri Lanka against New Zealand although, with four more Super 8s game still to be played, that line-up could change.

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Unbeaten Australia, who still have New Zealand to play, top the standings with 12 points. Sri Lanka hope to join the Kiwis on 10 points by beating Ireland in Grenada on Wednesday but South Africa, with eight, have no more Super 8s matches to play.

“It’s nice to go there with a bit of momentum,” said Graeme Smith, who smashed an unbeaten 89 off only 58 balls in his team’s 157 for one. “It’s going to be a big game any anything can happen.”

Smith’s players went into the game under a cloud after their own fans reported to the media that some of them had been on a heavy drinking binge after Saturday’s five-wicket loss to New Zealand in Grenada. Reporters were barred from asking questions about the incident at a post-match news conference.

“There’s always motivation but our motivation is that we know what kind of cricket we can play. We just wanted to play it. We haven’t really achieved that so far in this tournament and I think we achieved it today,” Smith said.

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“We were superbly disciplined with the ball, we just kept coming, our fielding was terrific and to bowl them out for 154 was a great effort. And then we just finished it off with the bat.”