India down Australia to march into semis; Bangladesh still alive

India have qualified for the semifinals of the T20 World Cup as the 2007 champions beat Australia by 24 runs in the Group One teams' final Super Eight match in St. Lucia on Monday.

The result leaves the Aussies in a serious spot of bother as they will now hope that Bangladesh beat Afghanistan, and do so by a margin of under 62 runs, in the group's final match -- beginning at 6:30am on Tuesday, Bangladesh time -- so that Australia's net run rate stays above the Tigers for a semifinals berth, where South Africa await. A victory for Afghanistan in Kingstown, however, will outright spell doom for the 2021 winners.     

At the Darren Sammy National Cricket Stadium, despite a valiant 73 off 43 balls from Travis Head, Australia fell short, due to some intelligent bowling from the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, and Arshdeep Singh, who took team-high three wickets, backed by sharp fielding. India will now prepare to face holders England in their last-four encounter. 

Earlier, Rohit Sharma struck a quickfire 92. The India captain's dashing innings -- he faced just 41 balls, including seven fours and eight sixes -- was the cornerstone of a total of 205-5 made after Australia skipper Mitchell Marsh won the toss.

India star batsman Virat Kohli holed out for a five-ball duck off Josh Hazlewood, who took an impressive 1-14 in his maximum four overs, with Tim David taking a fine running catch over his shoulder.

But fellow opener Rohit then cut loose. He was particularly severe on Mitchell Starc, the only change to the Australia team that suffered a shock 21-run defeat by Afghanistan last time out.

He hit the left-arm fast bowler for 29 runs in a third over where he struck four sixes --  two in successive balls over extra-cover, a monster hit over deep midwicket and a top-edged full toss over the wicketkeeper.

But with Rohit threatening to the first hundred of this tournament, Starc bowled him with an excellent yorker to leave India 127-3 in the 12th over.

Although the run-rate slowed, Suryakumar Yadav (31), Shivam Dube (28) and Hardik Pandya (27 not out) all made useful contributions.

"It was like a dream watching Rohit, he batted so beautifully," said Suryakumar Yadav during the innings break. "Before coming here, we spoke about how we wanted to go about things with the bat and he showed us the way.

"It's a good score but it is a good pitch. There is something for the bowlers, so hopefully we can use that and defend the total."

Starc did well to finish with 2-45 as fellow paceman Pat Cummins went wicketless while conceding 48 runs.