India falter in final shoot-off again to Australia
BREDA,NETHERLANDS: India’s quest for their maiden Champions Trophy hockey title remained unaccomplished as they lost 1-3 to defending champions Australia via the tie-breaker shoot-off in the summit clash of the 37th and final edition of the prestigious tournament here on Sunday.
India came close to securing their maiden triumph, only to be denied by a valiant show by Australia goalkeeper Tyler Lovell.
The match went into the shootoff after the teams were locked at 1-1 in regulation time.
But the Kookaburra custodian produced a stellar show in the shoot-off, denying Sardar Singh, Harmanpreet Singh and Lalit Upadhayay while Manpreet Singh was the only scorer for India.
Australia, on the other hand, converted their first two shoot-off efforts through Aran Zalewski and Daniel Beale before Indian goalkeeper PR Sreejesh denied Matthew Swann and Tom Craig.
But Jeremy Edwards converted the last try to hand Australia their record 15th Champions Trophy title.
But the Indians can take heart from the fact that they matched Australia stick to stick in the entire 60 minutes, even dominated the proceedings for a better part of the game but the strikers failed to utilise the numerous chances in front of an agile Lovell.
It was Australia who took the lead in the 24th minute through Blake Govers who converted their only penalty corner.
Sreejesh pulled off a brilliant
save to deny Aaron Kleinschmidt but from the resultant move Australia secured their only short corner and Govers made no mistake to give his side the lead.
Three minutes into the third quarter, India earned another penalty corner but it also failed to yield the desired result.
Four minutes later, Mandeep Singh struck the post from close range. Manpreet was then denied by Lovell from close range after being fed by Harmanpreet’s pass. But from the resultant move Vivek scored after getting a deflection from Manpreet as India levelled the score.