BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AFP): Australia captain Ricky Ponting basked in his team's 25-match unbeaten World Cup run on Friday and promised more scintillating cricket to come.
Australia stormed into the World Cup semi-finals on Friday with a nine-wicket win over Ireland which was wrapped up before lunch.
It also gave the two-time defending champions their 19th successive World Cup win and their 25th game overall unbeaten in the competition, a run stretching back to 1999 when they lost to Pakistan in Leeds.
The only non-victory in that run was the famous tied semi-final against South Africa in the 1999 tournament.
"We are on a really good run at the moment," said Ponting.
"It's all a matter of the attitude being right for the rest of this tournament and you should see some more good cricket from us.
"I think we've got a good record over the years of stringing together consecutive wins, whether it be Test matches or one-day internationals."
Australia, the only team in the Caribbean with a 100-percent record, have two more Super Eights matches to play against Sri Lanka on Monday and New Zealand on April 20, both in Grenada.
"It's really the business end of the World Cup now," said Ponting.
"We've achieved what we've wanted to achieve so far in this tournament, especially out of today's game."
Ireland were completely outclassed by Australia and were reduced to 12-4 at one stage as Glenn McGrath and Shain Tait went on to take three wickets each.
Ireland captain Trent Johnston acknowledged his side were always going to struggle.
"I knew it was going be tough. They're not two-time world champions going for a third for nothing," said the Australian-born Johnston who took the only wicket to fall when he clean-bowled Adam Gilchrist.
"We knew we had to play out of our skins and they had to have a pretty poor day for us to be competitive. You can only learn form that and hopefully a lot of the guys can take away from that."
Michael Hussey, who was promoted to open the batting for Australia, refused to contemplate talk of a third successive World Cup title.
"We've got a long way to go before we make the final," said Hussey who made an unbeaten 30.
"I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We've got two very tough Super Eights games - against Sri Lanka and New Zealand - left before we can even talk about the semi-finals."
Hussey was happy to get rare time in the middle on Friday.
"It was a great opportunity to get a hit, chasing such a low score. I really enjoyed it," he said.
"I played pretty well. The pitch had good pace and bounce and you need a little time to get used to it but once you did it was coming on beautifully."
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