South Africa's hopes were washed out (Getty Images).

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For a country so gripped by World Cup fever, the South African team's elimination from the tournament is a massive disappointment.

Expectations ran high, but rain put an end to their hopes of progressing to the next stage, the Super Six.

The tournament hosts were forced to settle for a tie under the Duckworth/Lewis method as rain halted their pursuit of Sri Lanka's 268 for nine with 40 needed from five overs.

South Africa needed to win the crucial Pool B match to progress to the Super Six stage but with the sides taking two points apiece it is New Zealand who join Kenya and Sri Lanka in the next phase.

Despondent South Africa captain Shaun Pollock said: "If we had faced one more ball of the next over and got one run from it we could have been through.

"There are a lot of ifs and buts to take out of it, but it's very disappointing."

With the Duckworth/Lewis calculations being applied, Pollock said he was trying to keep the two batsmen at the crease informed of the required run rate.

"We were trying to keep the batsmen updated but obviously you can't judge when the rain is going to come. They knew what they had to get and if we had faced five or six more balls and got the five or six runs it would have been a different situation."

Pollock called on the South African fans to continue to support the event in his team's absence.

"It is disappointing for the public but it's a great event.

"Obviously they would have loved to have seen us but to make the tournament a success and keep it going it is important to get out there and support the games that take place," he said.

Looking back at his team's performance in the tournament, Pollock said: "It is difficult to analyse this game and put a finger on it and say what went wrong. We lost far too many wickets cheaply, in a soft manner, which was disappointing.

"Obviously it is not the ideal situation to come into the last game of your Pool section having to win it to make sure you go through and that is what we needed to do and now we could say we were on track but we were done by the rain."

He added: "I don't think we got what we deserved in this tournament. I really don't think we were that bad, or our performances were that bad. If we analyse the three big games we lost; we lost to West Indies by only three runs and against New Zealand we got over 300 and unfortunately the conditions changed when they batted.

"I am not making excuses and saying that we would have won but it did make life easier for them and then we tied this one."

Asked, finally, if he was considering his position as captain, he simply shook his head and said: "No."

In contrast to his opposite number, the Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya, looked relaxed and satisfied. He said: "It was the umpires' decision not my decision. We can't take any decision in the middle. I knew the game stood at a tie I had the (Duckworth/Lewis) sheet in my hand when it started drizzling."

Asked what chance he thought his team had of winning had the rain not caused a stoppage, Jayasuriya said: "I think we had a very good chance, because we had Murali (Muralitharan) to bowl one over and Russel (Arnold) was bowling very well. If we had played we had a very good chance.

"We had a lot of faith in our batting and especially in Marvan (Atapattu) and Aravinda (de Silva) who has so much experience and I think Marvan played a brilliant innings.

"We wanted someone to get a hundred and two batsmen to get some runs.

"Aravinda played a very good innings along with Marvan and we thought around 250 or 260 is always a winning total.

"Our bowlers have been bowling well and we can defend that total."