The Indians started the match well at the Kalinga Stadium, going into a 2-0 lead inside 35 minutes before Belgium managed to shift the momentum back in their favour within the next 10 minutes with two goals from Loïck Luypaert bringing it back to 2-2.

This took Luypaert’s tournament goal tally to an incredible eight goals in four matches.

India, however, managed to reclaim the lead just seconds later through a Rupinder Pal Singh penalty corner goal.

With their place in the competition slipping from their grasp, the Belgians rallied to equalise just seven minutes from time.

The match ended 3-3, meaning a shootout was required to separate the teams.

India led the shootout 2-0 after three efforts, however, Belgian once again showed their composure to bring it back to 2-2 and force sudden-death.

It was Arthur van Doren that had the misfortune of missing his penalty for Belgium, sending the stands in Bhubaneswar into jubilation as the crowds watched their home team go through to the semi-final.

After the match, India’s Rupinder Pal Singh described the positive impact of the home crowd.

"It was a really exciting game, I’d describe it as nail-biting," he said.

"The crowd were amazing today, they helped us play a really good game."

The other match of the day saw defending champions Australia run out 4-1 winners against Spain, despite going 1-0 down in the 20th minute.

Spain will feel that they should have at least forced a shootout as they missed some good opportunities, particularly when Australia had a Daniel Beale sin-binned with the score at 1-1.

Australia showed their class and ran away with the game, though, in the final quarter thanks to three penalty corner goals.

Captain Mark Knowles was pleased with his sides ruthlessness from those penalty corner situations.

"The push-out, trap and flick was really good today," he said. 

"You cannot have a world class flicker if someone cannot push it out flat, and it was very pleasing to the coaching staff."

Tomorrow England are due to take on Argentina and Germany face The Netherlands in the other two quarter-final matches.