Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya blamed his batsmen after his side tumbled out of the World Cup.
Jayasuriya was disappointed by the Sri Lankan batting
The Sri Lankans had done well to reduce Australia to 212 for seven off their 50 allotted overs.
But they suffered a batting collapse in the semi-final before the match was decided by the Duckworth-Lewis method after a heavy downpour with Sri Lanka on 123 for seven.
Jayasuriya said: "It was disappointing. The batting let us down badly again. The middle order collapsed and unfortunately Marvan Atapattu and I got out early."
Atapattu was the first man out, bowled by Lee for 14, after he and Jayasuriya, who was out moments later, got off to an electric start.
From there the wickets fell steadily.
It's going to be difficult to replace him
Sanath Jayasuriya on Aravinda de Silva
"The key was not to lose wickets in the first 10 to 15 overs," added Jayasuriya. "If we had avoided that we would have easily reached the target."
Despite deploring his own and his team's batting, the all-rounder was quick to praise the Sri Lankan performance in the field.
He added: "This was the kind of pitch we were used to. The bowlers bowled well and we fielded well.
"It was very good to restrict them to 212 on this wicket. But we only did 50% of the match but failed for the other half.
"But we did really well to come to the Super Six stage and then reach the semi-final."
As well as Sri Lanka's exit from the tournament, the match marked the international retirement of Aravinda de Silva.
Jayasuriya paid tribute to his fellow all-rounder, saying: "We are going to miss Aravinda de Silva. He's a great cricketer and he's done so much for Sri Lankan cricket.
"It's going to be difficult to replace him."