South Korea’s national baseball team will play against Japan in Tokyo on Friday night in a crucial bid to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Baseball Classic.

Kim Kwang-hyun of the SSG Landers will start at the Tokyo Dome as Team Korea seeks to overcome the shock of falling to Australia 8-7 the previous day and shore up any chance to recreate the success of 2009 when the team reached the semifinals.

Japan, which cruised past China 8-1 on Thursday, is starting Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres as it seeks to move closer to its goal of winning the tournament for the third time.

The top two teams from Pool B comprising South Korea, Japan,Australia, China and the Czech Republic will advance to the single-elimination bracket with the top two from the other three pools.