BHUBANESWAR: Defen­ding champions Belgium and world’s top-ranked team Australia reached the semi-finals of the FIH Men’s World Cup here at the Kalinga Stadium on Tuesday.

While three-time winners Australia struggled before edging Spain in a 4-3 win in the first quarter-final, Belg­ium recorded a facile 2-0 win over New Zealand in the second last-eight match.

The victory steered Austr­alia to their 12th straight semi-finals in the World Cup.

Winners of the 1986, 2010 and 2014 editions, Australia have made it to the semi-finals of a World Cup on 11 occasions since the 1978 edition in Buenos Aires. They lost to the Dutch in the semi-finals in a penalty shootout in the 2018 edition, also staged in India.

Belgium suffered a jolt just before their quarter-final, as their penalty corner expert Alex­ander Hendrickx was ruled out of remainder of the event after he twisted his knee in their final pool ‘B’ ma­tch against Japan last Friday.

Belgium now await the winners of the quarter-final betw­een England and Germany in the semi-final, while Australia will face the winners of the other last-eight match between the Netherl­ands and South Korea. Both the remaining quarter-finals will be held on Wednesday.

In the Australia-Spain game, Jeremy Hayward’s two penalty corner strikes in the third quarter made the difference.

Spain captain Marc Miralles committed a costly mistake when he failed to score from a penalty stroke four minutes from the final hooter, when his team trailed 3-4.

Hayward struck in the 33rd and 37th minutes while Flynn Ogilvie (30th) and captain Aran Zalewski (32nd) scored field goals for Australia.

Xavier Gispert (20th), Marc Recasens (24th) and Miralles (41st) were the goal scorers for Spain who had finished a lowly 13th spot last time.

Spain denied Australia from playing their fast-paced game in the first quarter. Australia, however, dominated as they got three penalty corners in the first 15 minutes but could not convert even once.

Penalty corner specialist Blake Grover took two without any success while Hayward flicked once with the same result as the two sides failed to break the deadlock in the first quarter.

But Spain surprised in the second quarter, scoring two goals as against one by Australia.

At one point, it looked like an upset win was on the cards when Spain were leading 2-0 till the final minute of the second quarter.

Spain scored two fine field goals through Gispert and Recasens to go 2-0 up in the 24th minute.

But just a few seconds from the second quarter, Australia pulled one back with Ogilvie finding himself unchallenged in the Spanish striking circle from a Matt Dawson pass.

Ogilvie struck hard and beat the goalkeeper.

If Spain were the better side in the second quarter, Australia were clearly the dominant team in the third as they struck three of the four goals scored in that period.

It was a three-goal burst in a space of five minutes for Australia as Zalewski found the target in the second minute of the third quarter before Hayward struck twice in quick succession.

From trailing 0-2 just before the end of second quarter, Australia were 4-2 up in the third quarter.

Spain pulled one back four minutes before the end of the third quarter with Miralles scoring from a penalty corner.

In the fourth quarter Spain got a chance to equalise and take the match into the shootout. But Miralles wasted a penalty stroke with Australia goalkeeper Andrew Charter, who was later named player-of-the-match, blocking the shot with his outstretched left leg.

Later, Belgium took some time to settle down in their quarter-final against New Zealand but once they did that the defending champions took control of the match as they scored a goal each in the first and second quarters.

They held onto the first-half lead till the end of the match.

Forward Tom Boon opened the scoring for Belgium in the 11th minute from their first penalty corner.

New Zealand’s defence was caught napping in the first minute of the second quarter. Simon Gougnard’s cross from the right side of the ‘D’ went past at least two New Zealand defenders and Florent van Aubel was left unmarked to slam home for a goal in the 16th minute. The Black Sticks also mounted a few challenges in the fourth quarter with some fine attacking moves but their last touch or deflection did not come.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2023