Rosario (Argentina), Sep 2 (IANS) India went down 3-6 to Australia in their second match of the women's hockey WOrld Cup.

A double strike from Ashleigh Nelson helped Australia to a comfortable victory Wednesday against India, who slumped to their second defeat after their crushing 1-7 rout by defending champions Netherlands in the opening match.

In other pool matches Wednesday, Netherlands beat New Zealand 7-3 while Germany got the better of Japan 2-1

India are placed at the bottom of the table in the six team pool B. The Netherlands lead the pack with Australia placed second.

Australia won their second successive match to place themselves on the semi final track.

The early stages of the match were a scrappy affair, with both teams struggling to retain possession in the cold conditions. Australia slowly began to get the upper hand in the game and took the lead in the 16th minute when Madonna Blyth opened the scoring.

India hit back through a beautiful reverse stick effort from Rani Rampal, but Australia's Nelson got back the lead moments before half time.

India bounced back early in the second period when Ritu Rani found the target, but Australia stepped up their game to score three times to establish a 5-2 advantage thanks to goals from Casey Eastham, Nicole Arrold and a second for Nelson. Rani reduced the deficit seven minutes from the end of the game before the result was put beyond all doubt by Shelly Liddelow's field goal.