Hockey: Quarter-finalists India ride on Gurjant twin strikes to beat Japan

Tokyo: Striker Gurjant Singh was twice on target as India comfortably outclassed hosts Japan 5-3 on Friday to complete their pool proceedings with four victories having already sealed a quarter-final berth in the Tokyo Olympics.

Apart from Gurjant (17th, 56th), Harmanpreet Singh (13th), Shamsher Singh (34th) and Nilakanta Sharma (51st) scored for India to hand the eight-time Olympic champions their third consecutive win in Pool A at the Oi Hockey Stadium.

Kenta Tanaka (19th), Kota Watanabe (33rd) and Kazuma Murata (59th) were the goal getters for Japan, who were already knocked out of the last-eight race ahead of Friday's tie.

By virtue of this win, India finished second in Pool A behind Australia with four victories out of five matches. They face Great Britain, who finished third in Pool B, in the quarterfinal scheduled on Sunday.

Australia ended their pool engagements on top with four wins and a draw.

India's lone defeat -- a 1-7 drubbing -- came at the hands of Australia.

The top four teams from each pool of six qualify for the quarterfinals.

"Better performance tonight. First-quarter was pretty good, we lost a little bit after they scored. In the second half, we came out and sort of regained control over the game. But, I thought we played better.

"We really tried playing at a much higher tempo tonight, trying to get on the tempo that we are going to need on Sunday. Good to get a couple of field goals, created a lot of opportunities, but I think we still need to get better at those outcomes in the circle," said India chief coach Graham Reid.

Looking to keep their winning run intact, the Indians went on the offensive from the beginning and penetrated the Japanese attacking third on several occasions.

Despite exerting continuous pressure on the Japanese defence, the Indians couldn't manage a clear shot at the goal in the first 10 minutes of the match.

In fact, it was Japan who had the first scoring chance but Tanaka's shot just went wide.

Soon India secured their first penalty corner and Harmanpreet made no mistake in giving his side the lead.

Simranjeet Singh and Gurjant had a good match upfront as they combined well but the latter's effort from close range was kept away by Japan goalkeeper Koji Yamasaki.

India doubled their lead two minutes into the second quarter when Simranjeet and Gurjant again combined well to create the

opportunity.