THIS was the biggest mis-match that the Rose Bowl has ever seen.

World champions Australia took less than three hours to beat a USA team made up of ageing West Indian expatriates by nine wickets.

It was entirely predictable.

Despite the presence of Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist and Brett Lee, full strength Australia were watched by a smaller crowd than you would expect for a day of county championship cricket at the Rose Bowl.

After winning the toss, the Aussies were typically clinical.

Only Steve Massiah made double figures as the USA were bowled out for 65, the lowest team total in the brief history of the ICC Champions Trophy.

Lee and Glenn McGrath took just one wicket between them but Michael Kasprowicz (4 for 14) and Jason Gillespie (4 for 15), the other half of the Aussie pace battery, ripped through the States line up.

Aussie captain Ponting admitted: "We didn't get a whole lot out of that game but hopefully the USA boys did, otherwise it's a bit of a waste of time them being here.

"Hopefully one day they'll get a strong team on the park but I'm not convinced a World Cup or a Champions Trophy is the right place for them to play.

"We want to play against the best players all the time, we want to be tested, and I don't think we were tested a lot today."

The USA would have batted had they won the toss, but once Ponting made the correct call, the outcome was a foregone conclusion

And if it had not been for rain, which delayed the start by 30 minutes, the contest would have been over even earlier.

Ponting, whose side face rivals New Zealnd at the Oval on Thursday, added: "The idea for us was to hopefully win the toss, send them in, bowl them out cheaply and be able to hit the runs quickly to get our run rate above New Zealand's in case the weather intervenes this week. We've acheieved that so we got what we could out of the game."

The USA, meanwhile, are left to lick their wounds as their tournament is now over. Their next target is to qualify for the next World Cup, and they begin their campaign in Ireland next June.

At least captain Richard Staple, who returns to work on Monday, and the rest of his side can say they have played against one of the best sides the world has ever seen.

"There were positives, we learnt from the way these guys play which was one of the objectives before the game," said the 34-year-old.