Cricket:Shane Watson's magnificent 94 guided Australia to a comprehensive seven-wicket victory over Canada to move them to the top of Group A. The victory extended Australia's extraordinary World Cup unbeaten run to 34 matches while Canada end their campaign with just a single win from six matches.
Openers Watson and Haddin (88 off 84) scored 183 for the opening wicket to complete Australia’s domination of the match after Brett Lee (four for 46) helped them to bundle out Canada for a paltry 211.
The defending champions overhauled the target inside 35 overs and will face Pakistan, the last team to beat them at a World Cup back in 1999, in their last group match on Saturday.
Batting first after winning the toss, Canada made an excellent start in Bangalore reaching 77 for one after 10 overs. Hiral Patel brought up his half-century off just 37 balls, but fell to Watson four runs later. The 19-year-old hit three sixes and five boundaries in his breezy innings and added 41 runs each with John Davison and Zubin Surkari.
Surkari and Ashish Bagai looked to carry on from there, but Australia were able to bring down the scoring rate to just over four as Canada reached 131 for two at the halfway mark. Shaun Tait then triggered a collapse with his double strike that sent back Bagai (39 off 55) and Surkari (34 off 69) besides ending their 68-run stand.
Canada meandered to 200 for eight in the 43rd over, but Lee’s double strike ended the innings 11 runs later with 4.2 overs remaining.
In reply, Watson and Haddin saw off a hostile opening spell from the Canada bowlers to set Australia on course to overhaul the target. The Aussie openers preferred caution over aggression, but opened up after opting to take the batting powerplay and quickly took the champions to 100 in 22 overs and also raced to their individual half-centuries in quick succession.
Haddin took 63 balls to reach his half-century while Watson took eight more balls to reach the mark, but the duo switched gears thereafter hitting a flurry of sixes and boundaries to take Australia closer to victory.
Canada had a brief respite when Haddin was caught-behind off Davison for 88, but his mature innings studded with 11 boundaries and two sixes, had powered Australia to 183 in 29 overs.
Watson, who had hit just six boundaries to reach his half-century, smashed four sixes — including the biggest of the tournament at 104 meters — thereafter to move within six runs of a century.
But Harvir Baidwan denied him the glory by having him caught in the deep, leaving the remaining task to captain Ricky Ponting and his deputy Michael Clarke. Ponting, however, departed with five runs needed for victory, but a boundary from new man Cameron White and a wide from Henry Osinde finished things off with over 15.1 overs remaining.