NEW DELHI, March 6 While favourites Australia defeated Beijing Olympic silver-medallists Spain 2-1 on Saturday to move closer to a semi-final berth in the men's field hockey World Cup, Pakistan confirmed their embarrassing exit from the tournament after suffering a shocking defeat at the hands of lowly South Africa.

Former champions Pakistan, already out of contention for the knock-out rounds, faced a humiliating 4-3 defeat against South Africa in another group 'B' match.

South Africa, whose three previous defeats in the tournament included a record 12-0 drubbing by Australia, reserved their best hockey against Pakistan.

Rehan Butt's first-half goal for Pakistan mattered little as the South Africans pumped in four goals in the space of 16 minutes after resumption.

Gareth Carr opened the scoring for the African champions in the 38th minute, before Ian Haley, Taine Paton and Marvin Harper increased the margin.

Pakistan made the scoreline look better than the match suggested by scoring twice in the last four minutes through Muhammad Imran and Waseem Ahmed.

Pakistan and South Africa were left with three points each from four matches.

The Australians scored once in each half, with Luke Doerner converting a penalty corner in the 20th minute, before Glenn Turner increased the tally 10 minutes before the final whistle.Doerner's sixth goal of the tournament helped him draw level with leading goalscorer Taeke Taekema of the Netherlands, while Turner scored his fifth.

The Kookaburras avenged the 3-2 defeat at Spain's hands in the Olympic semi-final at Beijing and took their points tally to nine from four matches in the group.

European champions England, who already have nine points from three games, were to face hosts India in the third and final game of the day later on Saturday.

Australia will fancy their chances of taking the other semi-final spot from the group with a goal difference of plus-16 ahead of their last league match against Pakistan on Monday.

Spain are almost certainly out of the semi-final race with just six points from four matches.

Australian coach Ric Charlesworth said he was delighted at the win, but slammed the umpires for awarding seven penalty corners to Spain.

“I am very angry at the umpiring today [Saturday],” he said. “Giving them seven penalty corners put a lot of pressure on our players. Some of them were just not warranted.

“Umpiring has been a problem for some years, but one expects better at a World Cup.”

Spanish coach Dani Martin conceded his team will now have to be content with playing classification matches.“You don't deserve to be in the semi-final if you waste seven penalty corners,” he stated. “We will now try to finish among the top six.”—AFP