Indian men's hockey team lost their Champion Trophy final 1-3 to Australia via penalty shootout late on Friday night but fans and big stars around the world hailed their gutsy performance.
After the 60 minutes of regulation play remained goalless in the final, Australian goalkeeper Tyler Lovell denied S.K. Uthappa, S.V. Sunil and Surender Kumar in the penalty shoot-out to drive Australia to their 14th Champions Trophy title -- most by any side.
Harmanpreet Singh was the only scorer for India, while for Australia, Aran Zalewski, Daniel Beale, Simon Orchard succeeded. Indian goalkeeper P.R. Sreejesh could only deny Trent Mitton.
Here is how twitter reacted after India's defeat:
Congratulations 2 Indian Hockey team on a well fought finals & a fantastic #HCT2016 👏 All the best for the future matches👍 @TheHockeyIndia— VVS Laxman (@VVSLaxman281) June 18, 2016
#HCT2016 Congratulations team India! Your silver medal is studded with diamonds of appreciation & admiration from all indian hockey lovers— jagbir singh (@jagbirolympian) June 18, 2016
19th century processes and bureaucracy of @FIH_Hockey holding back the sport. Can't believe they could not present the trophy #HCT2016— Viren Rasquinha (@virenrasquinha) June 17, 2016
Great effort by @TheHockeyIndia ,went right down to the wire.Lost a great final in Penalty Shootout but won our hearts. #HCT2016 #IndvsAus— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) June 17, 2016
Bad luck Indian hockey team...we r proud of u the way u played ....— parthiv patel (@parthiv9) June 18, 2016
Australia won-But India dominated the game!Big effort by India to reach at this level!In Hockey-India my Olympic Gold medal favourite!— Ajay Maken (@ajaymaken) June 17, 2016
What an incredible match. Ind did in hockey tonight what I haven't seen in a real long time. Don't lose heart guys. Game on #Rio2016. #URock— Rahul Mehra (@TheRahulMehra) June 17, 2016