Ivan Ratikic was the hero as Croatia secured the win they required to set themselves up for Wednesday's clash with England at Wembley.

Ratikic scored midway through the first half as Croatia moved to four points adrift of leaders England in Group Six, having played one more match than Fabio Capello's team.

If England beat Croatia next week then they cannot be caught and will qualify automatically for next summer's World Cup finals in South Africa, but Slaven Bilic's team, for now, still have distant hopes of claiming top spot.

Perhaps more importantly in the long run, today's victory for Croatia reopens the three-point gap between themselves and Ukraine, which for a few hours had been wiped out by Ukraine's 5-0 win against Andorra.

Croatia have also played one more match than Ukraine.

Croatia had to cling on after Tottenham defender Vedran Corluka was sent off with 12 remaining.

They had entered the game without their star midfielder Luka Modric, who was injured on Tottenham duty against Birmingham last month, however the handicap was diminished by the fact Belarus were also lacking their key man, Alexander Hleb.

The visitors to Zagreb deployed five players across midfield in an effort to stifle Croatia and it proved mostly effective.

Croatia's goal owed a lot to good fortune as Ratikic's shot took a deflection off the head of Dimitry Verkhovtsov on its way into the net.

Ivica Olic was a nuisance to the Belarus defence in the second half and went inches away from adding a second Croatia goal, however the home's task was complicated when Corluka was ordered off, booked for the second time in the match, this time for time-wasting.

Belarus went for broke and forced goalkeeper Vedran Runje to produce three stunning saves, however Croatia held out and welcomed the final whistle with relief.