Rain in Aus match made the difference

Colombo: India's captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni blamed the rain intervention in their first Super Eight match against Australia for their ouster from the World Twenty20 Championship. India beat South Africa by a solitary run here on Tuesday but failed to qualify for the semi-final due to Pakistan's superior run-rate.

India, who ended the tournament tied with Australia and Pakistan on four points, needed to restrict South Africa to 121 or less to qualify for the semis after scoring 152 for six.

South Africa lost the match narrowly but put India also out of the tournament by scoring 151 all out in 19.5 overs. "If you take the Australia game out, where the rain intervened, we performed brilliantly and can't have control over how other teams played," said Dhoni.

Australia thrashed India by nine wickets in the first match of the Super Eight stage.

Australia had thrashed India by nine wickets and more than five overs to spare.

"Overall I'm quite happy with how the team performed. There were instances where we should have had 10-15 runs more on the board. We lost too many wickets early," Dhoni said talking about the final match against the South Africans.

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