( L - R ) Muttiah Muralitharan and Ponting

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (CMC):

Sri Lanka will aim to halt Australia's juggernaut and secure their semi-final spot when the two teams meet in their Cricket World Cup, Super Eight match today at the National Stadium here.

After losing their opening second round match to South Africa, Sri Lanka have rattled off three successive wins, but meet an Australian team who are unbeaten in the tournament and who have become increasingly ruthless as the competition has worn on.

Sri Lanka's Australian coach Tom Moody told reporters yesterday his side would be gunning for full points against the Aussies, but would be sticking to their natural style of cricket.

"From our personal point of view it would be great to win tomorrow and continue the momentum that we have had so far in this tournament," Moody told reporters.

"We [will] concentrate on our brand of cricket and don't try to chase Australia's style.

He continued: "Australia is playing a power game at the moment. They have got a very, very strong batting line-up that's led at the front with Hayden and Gilchrist who play a power game up front. Most teams, if at all, have one player that plays that role, they have a couple.

"They also have the depth of fast bowling and with Watson fit, [they have] the all-round option in the middle order so the way they are playing their cricket is slightly different from Sri Lanka and most other teams."

Fast bowler Lasith Malinga, one of the tournament's leading wicket-takers, will sit out his second successive match.

Australia's captain Ricky Ponting acknowledged Sri Lanka's deadly bowling attack and said the key to winning would be to avoid losing early wickets. "There are a few [match winning bowlers].

Great bowler

(Chaminda) Vaas is a class player and has been a great bowler for them for a long time," Ponting said.

"What they have done - both Malinga and Vaas throughout this tournament - is take early wickets. They have had opposition teams a couple down pretty early on and that makes Murali (Mutthiah Muralitharan) more effective through the middle of the innings.

"So obviously our plan tomorrow will be to get through the new ball as well as we can and hopefully not lose too many wickets against the new ball, keep wickets in hand for the middle part of the game which is when they are going to slow things down with their spinners both (Sanath) Jayasuriya and Murali and probably (Tillekeratne) Dilshan.