Australia mystified by Sri Lankan tactics

Australia's Andrew Symonds has admitted he was stunned to see Sri Lanka rest frontline bowlers Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan from their World Cup Super Eights clash this morning.

Symonds smashed an unbeaten 63 as the world champions wrapped up a comfortable seven-wicket win at the Grenada National Stadium.

Both sides had already made sure of their places in the semi-finals but the result made it almost certain that Sri Lanka will avoid the defending champions in the last four and will probably face New Zealand in Jamaica.

"It's not the way we would have done it but they're a different team," Symonds said, on the decision to rest Vaas and Muralitharan.

"They are key players. It can affect confidence when you do that."

Australian captain Ricky Ponting, who top-scored with 66, said he did not know why Sri Lanka had made their decision.

"You've probably asked them their reasons, I don't know their reasons," he said. "I don't care what their reasons are.

"We turned up today, we put our best team on the park to win the game. We clearly finished on top which is great. Whatever opposition teams do, I don't care."

Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene defended the decision to rest the duo, which immediately weakened an attack already without injured seamer Lasith Malinga.

He said Murali had been nursing a groin problem and Vaas needed a break as the side could not afford another injury to one of their bowlers with Malinga already sidelined.

"We have to do what's best for the team and that's why we took the decision," Jayawardene said.

"We use our personnel on and off and we have to make sure we have the guys ready for the semi-finals."

He denied suggestions his two key bowlers had been left out of the match for tactical reasons.

"If you want to think it was a tactical decision that's for you to think about," he said. "That wasn't the intention. The intention was to give them a break.

"We never devalued the game but we just felt we had to make a team decision because we couldn't sustain another injury like what happened to Lasith.

"These guys are key players and if they are not fit going into the business end of the tournament we would look back and think why we didn't make this decision."

Australia's win was their 20th successive World Cup win, and made it almost certain that they would top the Super Eights table with a perfect record.

Australia next face New Zealand in their last Super Eights game on Friday night.