South Africa captain Graeme Smith raises his bat after reaching 50 runs against England during their Cricket World Cup Super Eight match in Barbados yesterday. - Reuters

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP)

SOUTH AFRICA swept into the semi-finals of the World Cup yesterday with a crushing, nine-wicket victory over England.

England, eliminated after this defeat, were bowled out for only 154 by a five-wicket burst from medium-fast bowler Andrew Hall and three from paceman Andre Nel. Hosts West Indies were also eliminated by this result.

In response, South African openers Graeme Smith (89 not out) and A.B. de Villiers (42) completed England's humiliation, scoring at will at almost 10 runs an over against a dispirited England bowling attack to put on 85 for the first wicket.

"There's always motivation but our motivation is that we know what kind of cricket we can play. We just wanted to play it," Smith said. "We haven't really achieved that so far in this tournament and I think we achieved it today.

"We were superbly disciplined with the ball, we just kept coming, our fielding was terrific and to bowl them out for 154 was a great effort. And then we just finished it off with the bat."

Smith's 89 came off only 58 balls and South Africa reached 157 for one with 30.4 overs to spare. England were booed from the field by thousands of supporters who had flown to Barbados for the match.

"The performance today was pretty average. We've let quite a lot of people down," said England captain Michael Vaughan. He now leads his team into a final game against a West Indies team which has also been eliminated.

"We know we have a big game on Saturday. We know we have to come out and improve our performance," Vaughan said.

"We know we're out of the World Cup. We've a lot of pride and we realise there's a lot of supporters out here that we've let down and we need to make sure that on Saturday we turn up and put in a performance. We have to make sure we analyse what has gone wrong in the World Cup. We've had a poor winter in all aspects."

Sajid Mahmood was smashed for 28 from two overs before being taken off and Jimmy Anderson resorted to sledging de Villiers, who smiled and ignored him. The opener was caught behind for 42 from Andrew Flintoff in the 10th over, but the damage was done.

South Africa join Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka in the last four and will probably face Australia in one semi-final in St. Lucia, April 25. New Zealand and Sri Lanka will likely meet in Jamaica in the other, the day before.

England won the toss and batted, but the wicket played little part in the team's humiliation. Shaun Pollock tied up the bowling at one end with a superb spell of none for 17 from 10 overs. Andrew Strauss scored 46 and Paul Collingwood 30, but the other batsmen sold their wickets too cheaply in the face of solid, if undramatic bowling.

Hall finished with five for 18, his first five-wicket haul in one-day internationals. He ripped through England's middle order with four wickets in nine balls.

Despite failing to take a wicket, Pollock bowled a flawless opening spell of six overs for only eight runs as England struggled to cope with his nagging accuracy. Vaughan, with just 113 runs from his eight previous innings, appeared to lack any confidence and it took him 20 balls to get a run. After six overs England had managed seven and Vaughan eventually made 17.

South African-raised Kevin Pietersen, the top one-day batsman in the world, came to the crease with the score on 37 for two and soon became Nel's second victim, playing an ugly attempted offside drive to a ball pitching on leg.

The result was a feeble chip to mid off caught by a diving Smith and Pietersen departed for three with the score on 53 for three.

Strauss and Collingwood pulled the England innings together. Strauss at first played some elegant shots, including a glorious six pulled over square leg. But they struggled against the naggingly accurate South African medium pacers Hall and Kallis.

They took the score to 111 before Strauss cut hard at Kallis and was caught in the gully by Smith only four runs short of his half century. That started a rout in which five wickets fell for just 10 runs and England's hopes of setting a challenging target evaporated.

Smith and de Villiers led the way with some spectacular batting, Smith's 50 coming up in 34 balls. After five overs South Africa were 44 for none. At the same stage, England had managed five runs.

The 100 came up off only 70 balls as Smith and Jacques Kallis (17 not out) showed no mercy on England and finished the match off quickly.