Battered by a torrent of Chris Gayle bombs, Australia heads to Nottingham aware its ICC World Twenty20 campaign will be over if it loses to Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge on Monday.
Australia had no answer to Gayle's power. The Windies captain, who last month controversially said he preferred the Twenty20 format to Test cricket, blasted six sixes and six fours on his way to a match-winning 88 off 50 balls.
Even if Australia was to bounce back from its seven-wicket loss at The Oval and defeat Sri Lanka, its hopes of progressing into the Super Eights will be decided by the final group match on Wednesday night between Sri Lanka and the Windies.
Australia's smoothest passage out of Group C lies in a pair of Sri Lanka losses.
Should all teams be locked on one win each, Australia, courtesy of a lowly run rate from its heavy loss to the Windies, is the most perilously placed team.
"Today, we didn't have things go our way but we now know our job at hand," said Australian captain Ricky Ponting.
"We've got to beat Sri Lanka on Monday and hopefully beat them well to give ourselves a chance of making it through to the next stage."
Ponting, who admitted he was unsure what the winning formula was in such a tournament, said a big part of Australia's plans in Twenty20 cricket lay in making strong starts with bat and ball.
Against the Windies, Australia lost two wickets in the first over with the bat then had strike bowler Brett Lee pounded for 10 runs with the new ball.
"With the game being as short as it is you can't afford to give away momentum like that early on in either innings and we did that in both innings," Ponting said.
"If we look at what we did today I think all of us can put our hands up and say we were off with execution today, whether it be with ball or with the bat and we dropped a catch as well."
"We were a bit sloppy and they were pretty sharp today."
Gayle's innings was reminiscent of his 117, still the highest ever Twenty20 international score by a player, in the opening match of the inaugural ICC World Twenty20 in South Africa in 2007. Remarkably, that came in a losing cause.
Two of Gayle's sixes were enormous. One landed on the roof of the pavilion and the other on an adjoining street.
"We obviously know what he's capable of on his day," Ponting said. "He's made hundreds before in this format of the game."
The laconic Gayle said he did not care where his shots landed, as long as they were on the other side of the rope.
"It doesn't matter how far it goes, as long as I clear the boundary I'm satisfied," he said.
"The ball was in the slot and it's Twenty20 so these things will happen. You'll have guys hit it further than me as well, you never know."
Gayle said the Windies' aim now was to guarantee qualification for the next phase by defeating Sri Lanka, as they look to atone for an early exit in 2007 following a shock loss to Bangladesh.
"We want to put back some smiles on the West Indies supporters' faces," said Gayle, whose team lost two Tests last month in England and was only spared another whitewash in the one-day series by rain.
"At the same time it's not over. This is the first game and we still have a long way to go."
"We just want to make it through. We want to be one of the top two."