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Disappointment for Graeme Smith.
Captain Ricky Ponting claimed Australia had produced their best performance of the tournament to ease past South Africa into their fourth successive World Cup final.
The reigning world champions swept to a seven-wicket victory over their nearest challengers in the world rankings with 18.3 overs remaining at the Beausejour Stadium.
They dismissed South Africa for a lowly 149 with man-of-the-match Glenn McGrath claiming three for 18 to take his tally to 25 victims, eclipsing the previous record for a tournament of 23 set by Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas four years ago.
Shaun Tait also claimed career-best figures of four for 39 while Michael Clarke completed the comprehensive win, their 22nd World Cup victory in succession, with an unbeaten 60 to set up Saturday's final showdown with Sri Lanka in Barbados.
"There's no doubt that today's our best win in this World Cup tournament so far," said Ponting. "To bowl them out for that total on that wicket when South Africa are a very, very good cricket team was definitely our best performance.
"We've been building up to a performance like this for the entire tournament and we think we've still got some improvement to come in the next game.
"Generally when the bigger games come around is when the Australian team stands up and we did that today and I'm sure we'll do it again on Saturday."
Australia's victory was effectively sealed when South Africa, who won the toss and decided to bat first, slumped to 27 for five inside the first 10 overs and although Justin Kemp hit an unbeaten 49 they still recorded their lowest ever World Cup total.
"It probably went better than we expected after we lost the toss," Ponting said. "When we lost the toss and had them at 27 for five it was a terrific start to the game.
"It was a dream start and we had them under pressure from the first over of the game really, which was what I expected the guys to be able to do.
"I wanted to keep them under pressure with either bat or ball for as long was as necessary to win the game and make some sort of impact on them.
"Their openers have played like that pretty much for all the tournament, but we just bowled well. We executed things really well today and once we got on a bit of a roll we were pretty hard to stop."
Veteran 37-year-old seamer McGrath, who retires at the end of this tournament, said: "I'm still happy to finish up at the end of this World Cup and I think the fact I've decided to retire is probably one of the reasons I'm going so well.
"I'm just going out there trying to enjoy it, make the most of it and make the most of every game I play. There's no pressure, no anything and I'm happy with the way I'm bowling and I guess when you play in a successful team it does make it a bit easier."
Dejected South Africa coach Mickey Arthur defended the tactics used by their top order, which resulted in Australia claiming an early stranglehold on the semi-final.
"I don't think we played reckless shots or threw our wickets away," he stressed.
"We had to disrupt Australia's momentum somehow and we needed to get on top and we needed to get on top quickly - it was a calculated plan, but unfortunately today it didn't come off."
Captain Graeme Smith added: "I guess you don't mind losing if you play to your potential and give yourself a real chance.
"As a team we know what we're capable of but we've been a little up and down in the World Cup. We've had some outstanding performances and we've had some medium performances so I guess the guys are a little disappointed.
"We were two games away from winning the World Cup and not putting in the performance that we were looking for is disappointing but we'll deal with it."
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