The 4-4 draw was, however, better than their dramatic 3-1 loss to England yesterday in the Indian city.

The Australians started the run with three goals in five minutes in the second period thanks to Chris Ciriello, Eddie Ockenden and Jake Whetton, but Belgium fought back quickly with Sébastien Dockier going alone to fire past Australia's Andrew Charter.

Florent van Aubel then secured Belgium's second goal on the stroke of half-time to leave the scoreline at 3-2 to Australia.

Flynn Ogilvie then scored his first international goal to extend the lead for Australia, but John-John Dohmen then scored for their opponents to make it 4-3 to the world champions before Boon smashed home a dramatic equaliser in the last moments of the game.

"We dominated throughout the match and scored through the opportunities that the boys got, but yes it's a disappointing end," Australia's coach Graham Reid said.

"We are positive and we will come back strong against Pakistan.

"We have to be more vigilant on our defence for the upcoming matches."

The Netherlands, meanwhile, produced their second win of the tournament to take the lead in Pool B.

They defeated Germany 4-1 with goals from Constantijn Jonker, Diede van Puffelen, Rogier Hofman and Seve van Ass, while Florian Fuchs scored for Germany.

England overcame Pakistan 8-2 thanks to goals from the likes of Nick Catlin
©World Sport Pics


England also claimed their second win in as many days as they overcame Pakistan 8-2.

Mark Gleghorne got the scoring underway, before a powerful hit by Nick Catlin made it 2-0.

David Condon then got the third goal, as Barry Middleton and Ashley Jackson also scored before the big break for a 5-0 lead.

Sam Ward clinched his third goal of the weekend and Alastair Brogdon added a seventh for England before Muhammad Arslan Qadir scored a consolation goal.

Chris Griffiths got number eight for England and, although Muhammad Irfan netted on the final hooter for Pakistan, the match remained England's biggest ever win over Pakistan in Champions Trophy history, with the previous best being a 2-0 win in 1999.

"We are growing all the time," Jackson said.

"Hopefully, we can be part of something very special if we keep improving.

"We need to make that next step in those semi-final games instead of those couple of results where we lost but played just about as well as we could have.

"We're hoping to make that next step very soon and come back with some good medals."

The last match of the day saw hosts India suffer a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Argentina.

The entertaining game saw both teams scoring within the same minute on two occasions - Akashdeep Singh and Lucas Vila in the 30th minute then Gurjinder Singh and Juan Lopez in the 37th minute.

However, it was Argentina that walked away with the victory thanks to late strikes from Agustin Mazzilli and Joaquin Menini.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
December 2014: England stun Australia as Men's Champions Trophy gets underway in India