Riding on superb performances from Siddharth Suchde and Saurav Ghosal, India beat Scotland 3-0 and made history by storming into the quarter-finals of the 12th World junior squash champiosnhip for men in Chennai on Thursday.

Going into the match in a do-or-die situation, with both the teams having one win and one loss each in the four-team
pool 'D', Suchde, who has been consistent throughout the tournament, yet again gave a flying start to the hosts, defeating Kristen Johnson 9-1, 9-7, 5-9, 9-5.

Junior national champion Saurav Ghosal pulled off a hard-fought 9-2, 9-1, 3-9, 3-9, 9-3 victory over Harry Gordon Leitch to help India take an unassailable 2-0 lead before Gaurav Nandrajog completed the formalities with a 9-2, 9-5, 9-5 win over Alistair Gorrie in just 29 minutes.

The victory enabled India finish runner-up in their pool behind Egypt and book a berth in the last eight, the first
time since it started competing in the championship in 1992. Incidentally, their previous best also came in that year
when the team finished 15.

However, India face an uphill task as they run into holders England, who topped their pool 'A' with an all-win record, in the knock-out phase which begins on Thursday

England have won the last three championships.

Canada, who emerged runners-up in pool 'A' with three wins, take on Egypt while second seeds Pakistan, with four
wins, and USA, three wins, qualified from pool 'B' and will meet Mexico and Australia respectively.

Australia, with four wins, topped pool 'C', but a three-way tie ensued for the second place, involving Mexico, New Zealand and Kuwait. But Mexico edged out others on better match tally.

The 17-year old Suchde, also the lone Indian to enter the individual quarter-finals, continued his splendid form as he
took the first and second games rather easily. Johnson gave a good fight in the third to take it and ran up 4-0 lead in the
next. But Suchde, who is studying in Scotland, closed the gap and went on to win the game and match.

Ghosal, who had won the German and Dutch Junior Opens this year, found himself in trouble after a 2-0 lead as he committed a few unforced errors in the third game. Leitch, playing an attacking game, capitalised on this and took the match into the decider.

The 16-year-old Indian, a 11th standard student of a Chennai school, rallied well after initially trailing his Scottish
opponent. Even as the points were closely fought, Ghosal kept his cool and served for the match at 8-3. An unforced error by him enabled Leitch to save the point, but Ghosal did not waste much time and took the match on his next serve.

Ghosal said he lost concentration slightly in the third game.

"But I knew I could win. In the decider I was a bit nervous intially when I trailed 0-3. But I told myself if I could win the first two games easily, I can win the match also."

An elated Indian Coach Cyrus Poncha was all praise for his boys.

"It's absolutely brilliant. This is the first time we are in the quarter-finals. Scotland are a very tough side, but I knew if we play well we can win. It was a team effort," he added.