MADRID, March 3: Pakistan opened their campaign in the Olympic hockey qualifiers with a 4-2 victory over Canada here on Tuesday. Canada are ranked 10 places behind fifth-ranked Pakistan , yet held Pakistan scoreless in the first half despite three penalty corners and a penalty stroke, all missed by Sohail Abbas.

Sohail made amends with two second-half penalty corner conversions with Kashif Jawwad and Shakeel Abbasi adding field goals. Shakeel confounded Canada as he weaved through the right mid-field, beating four defenders into the circle and driving past Michael Mahood in goal.

"We failed to do the things we talked about at half-time," said Canada's coach, Gene Muller. "And the players did the opposite of what we expected of them."

His Pakistani counterpart Roelant Oltmans was happy that the team had re-discovered their eye for goal in the second period. "Because we controlled the play much more than Pakistan usually does.

"I am pleased that we have all 18 players here and when Sarwar plays it will add to the forward line but I will not make a decision on Sarwar playing against Belgium until Thursday morning," Oltmans added. Oltman refused to be drawn on next Saturday's crunch match against India.

"My focus is not on India. I am concentrating on the next match which is against Belgium on Thursday," he said. Belgium stunned India with a 1-1 draw. India were expected to win easily over 14th-ranked Belgium but the European side refused to be intimidated by its eighth-ranked opponents and India must now beat Malaysia on Thursday as they seek one of the seven remaining tickets to Athens.

The Belgians took the match to India with extensive use of long overhead passes to counter India's short passing game. India lacked options with its two penalty corners in the first half, relying on Dilip Tirkey to hit in the absence of the injured Jugraj Singh recovering from a car accident last year.

Len Aiyappa flicked India's third corner over the bar 10 minutes into the second half and failed to make any flick on India's fourth corner but succeeded with India's seventh corner attempt, flicking high and to the left of Cedric Degreve in goal.

In addition to the seven penalty corners, India had only four shots on goal in the match. India's Baljit Singh Dhillon received a suspension six minutes from time and Belgium capitalised on the extra space with a field goal created out wide on India's left side defence.

The centre from Maxime Luycx came off the pads of Devesh Chauhan for Charles Vanderweghe to backstick in from two metres out. Belgium's coach Giles Bonnet was delighted with the upset.

In another match, South Africa scored in the first minute and held Netherlands to a 1-1 at half time but fell away to lose 5-1 to the reigning Olympic champions.

New Zealand scrapped a 1-0 win over Malaysia despite Malaysia having many more scoring chances. Great Britain started the tournament with a 2-1 loss against Poland.

Wednesday results: