Ismail Mohamed of Maldives reels away after scoring the first goal against Nepal in the SAFF Championship on Thursday. Maldives won 4-1 to enter the semi-finals.

MALE: India edged archrivals Pakistan 2-1 while hosts Maldives thrashed Nepal 4-1 to book their berths in the semi-finals of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship on Thursday.

NP Pradeep and Steven Dias were on target for defending champions India while the Maldivian goals came from Ismail Mohamed and Ibrahim Fazeel, who scored two each.

The Bob Houghton-coached Indians took the lead in the first match through Pradeep’s long-range missile in the 25th minute before Dias doubled the advantage on the stroke of half-time after brilliant approach work from captain Baichung Bhutia.

Akhtar Mohiuddin’s team pulled a goal back through Adnan Farooq Ahmed in the 88th minute but this failed to prevent the Pakistanis from crashing to their 12th defeat in 22 international games to India.

In the second match, Maldives jumped into the lead in the 10th minute through the first of Mohamed’s strikes but barely a minute later Nepal equalised when Vishad Gauchan’s powerful shot screamed into the left corner of the hosts’ goal.

Jozef Jankech’s men made it 2-1 in the 46th minute when Mohamed scored from the edge of the penalty area after beating his marker and a minute later the tally tipped further in favour of the hosts with Fazeel’s easy goal.

Fazeel put the match beyond Nepal in the 61st minute with an angled shot which ricocheted off the crossbar into the net, sending the capacity crowd into raptures.

Maldives will clash with India in their last group stage game on Saturday while today the action shifts to Sri Lanka where Bangladesh take on AFC Challenge Cup side Afghanistan while the hosts play Bhutan in Group B.