India captain Sourav Ganguly had no complaints after rain forced his side's triangular series match between Australia on Monday to be abandoned as a no-result.
A huge downpour at the VRA Ground, just outside Amsterdam, saw the players leave the field with just two balls of the Australia innings remaining and left India relying on a freak result to qualify for Saturday's final.
World champions Australia were on 175 for seven in 31.4 overs after rain had already reduced the game to a 32 overs per side contest and delayed the start by four-and-a-half hours.
It was a game India were desperate to win after seeing their hopes of reaching Saturday's final severely dented by a 66-run defeat in the tournament opener against Pakistan.
Both Australia and India received three points for a no-result.
That meant they would have to wait for the result of today's final pool match between Pakistan (already in the final) and Australia to see if they had reached the showpiece game.
But only a huge win for Pakistan, by something of the order of 200 runs, would see India sneak through on net run-rate.
And as far as Ganguly was concerned his team were already out.
"We needed to win this game to qualify," Ganguly said afterwards when the ground was bathed in bright sunshine.
"If we had won this game we would have had some chance but now we are totally out," he added. "We didn't play well against Pakistan and we don't deserve to be in the final."
India were already without Sachin Tendulkar, the star batsman ruled out of the whole tournament before Saturday's opener with an elbow injury.
And for this match Ajit Agarkar was forced out with a side strain problem.
Ganguly admitted it was frustrating not being able to field his first-choice team. "It's really been a worry. But we have to realize we do play a lot of one-day cricket, we play more one-day cricket than any other country in the world. I think that's pretty hard on the body."
Michael Clarke's 42 off 28 balls with seven fours was the centerpiece of Australia's total. Opener Matthew Hayden (29) and captain Ricky Ponting (26) were the only other batsmen to get past 20.
Afterwards, Ponting praised the performance of 23-year-old New South Wales batsman Clarke, who has been playing English county cricket for Hampshire.
"I've been pleased with what I've seen right from the word go with Michael. The way he approaches his one-day cricket at the moment is fantastic.
"He can bat in almost any position in the order, he backs himself in any situation and hits boundaries to strange parts of the field which is always handy," Ponting added.
"He's got the ability to finish games off. He's a fantastic fieldsman and can bowl some good left-arm off-spin when required.
"He's a fantastic one-day player for us and he's maturing all the time."
Lakshimpathy Balaji, who was the pick of the attack against Pakistan with three for 27, led the bowling again with three for 20. "He has shown a bit of character," said Ganguly of the seamer. "He didn't have a good series in Sri Lanka but he's come back well."
Australia lost wickets regularly after Ponting won the toss before a sixth-wicket stand of 37 between Clarke and Darren Lehmann (19) briefly staunched the flow.
Clarke showed his ability to improvise when he drove paceman Irfan Pathan for an "inside-out" four over extra-cover and next ball pulled him for another boundary.
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