Santiago, Mar 9: Britain and India will play off for a men`s field hockey berth in the Olympics after they won their last round-robin games in the qualifying tournament on Saturday.

Britain squashed Austria`s hopes 4-0 and India accounted for Chile 4-1 to set up the anticipated showdown in Sunday`s final, when only one of the former Olympic champions will go to Beijing.

Russia beat Mexico 9-1 in Saturday`s other match.

Austria had a mathematical chance of making the final but Britain ended that when James Tindall scored after only five minutes. Glenn Kirkham then hit the post off a penalty stroke but Ashley Jackson scored in the 12th.

Richard Mantell`s penalty corner goal made it 3-0 by halftime, and while Austria improved to limit a cruising Britain to a last-minute goal by Rob Moore, the Austrians still couldn`t breach Britain`s defense.

Britain finished the preliminaries with a perfect 15 points from five games, followed by India with 12 points, Austria 9, Russia 6, Chile 3 and Mexico zero.

Prabhjot Singh opened the scoring against Chile in the ninth minute, then VR Raghunath and Bharath piled on in a one-minute span to put India well in control.

Chile played well in the second spell but Raghunath delivered his tournament-best 10th goal from a penalty corner before Felipe Montegu rewarded home fans with the last score soon after.

Dmitry Azarov scored twice as Russia routed Mexico 9-1 and defied its lowly world ranking to book an unexpected spot in the third-fourth playoff against Austria. Chile will meet Mexico to avoid the wooden spoon.

India prepares for final against England

Agencies

Santiago, Mar 9: The 4-1 win over Chile in the World Hockey qualifying tournament here gave much-needed confidence to the Indians going into tomorrow's final against Britain, according to chief coach Joaquim Carvalho.

Speaking at the post-match media conference, Carvalho said that the Indian side showed far more fluency and better co-ordination than in the previous league match against Britain to whom they lost 3-2.

"Coming into today's game, we were very relaxed since we had already qualified for the final after Britain's 4-0 win over Austria. We were indeed anxious about that game, but when we learnt of the result, it put us in a good frame of mind," Carvalho said on Friday.

The coach asserted that he was not unduly concerned over the scoring opportunities that the Indian forwards missed against Chile, but that his focus was now the final against Britain, the winner of which will qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"It was more important for us to get into our rhythm tonight and not so much score many goals. We tried out a few variations in our midfield since Gurbaj Singh was being rested. He is nursing an injured toe, but will definitely be playing in the final," Carvalho said.