Olympic gold medallists Germany quashed Australia's bid to win a sixth successive Champions Trophy hockey title on Saturday, ousting the Kookaburras 3-2 in the semi-finals.

The Germans, playing with seven junior World Cup winners of 2013, stunned Australia with two goals by the ninth minute through Timur Oruz and Mats Grambusch.

They went up 3-0 immediately after half-time when Florian Fuchs took advantage of a goalmouth scramble and scooped the ball past goalkeeper Andrew Charter.

Australia hit back in the 34th minute as Chris Ciriello banged in a penalty corner to net his fourth goal in the tournament. Nicholas Budgeon narrowed the margin further in the 42nd by scoring off a penalty corner rebound.

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The Kookaburras, who lost to Germany 4-2 the last time they met in the semi-finals of the 2012 London Olympics, failed to equalise despite benching the goalkeeper to accommodate an extra striker.

Australia had been forced to try out new combinations at the tournament in the absence of four first-choice players, including star forward Jamie Dwyer.

Germany will meet Pakistan in the title clash on Sunday after Pakistan upset hosts India 4-3 in the later semi.

It will be Germany's first Champions Trophy final since 2009 when they were beaten by Australia 5-3 in Melbourne.

German coach Markus Weise said he was happy - and also relieved - that his young side had reached the final after a poor sixth-place finish at the World Cup in June.

"It is a very good thing to happen to the boys, they have proved themselves against the best," Weise said.

"We were lucky to be 3-0 ahead because the second-half belonged entirely to Australia. I am glad the boys fought it out till the end."

Australia's Eddie Ockenden said it was a tough game Australia could have won on chances.

"We could have put a couple of goals away at the end and we could have easily scored more goals," he said.

"We fought much better in second half and could have also taken the win."

Such is the format of the eight team competition, with every team qualifying for the quarter-finals irrespective of their pool phase results, both Pakistan and Germany reached the final having finished on the bottom of Pools A and B respectively, winning one match between them in the opening phase.

In the second semi-final in Bhubaneswar, India took the lead against their fierce rivals but Pakistan fought back to lead 2-1.

India equalised twice to make it 2-2 and then 3-3 before Pakistan snatched a late winner with just two minutes remaining.

The result means that Pakistan will definitely finish higher than two years ago in Melbourne where they won the bronze Pakistan's last final was in 1998 when they went down 3-1 to the Netherlands on home soil in Lahore and the last of Pakistan's three tournament titles was in 1994.

Australia and India will play for third place, having met as recently as November in a four-match Test series in Perth in which the Kookaburras won the opening contest 4-0 but lost the series after going down 2-1, 1-0 and 3-1 in the remaining games.