New Delhi: 01 July :- Australian hockey team defeated India 3-1 (1-1) in the shoot-out in the final of the Champions Trophy and took the title for the 15th time. India went away from the title for the second time in the final. By the time fixed time both teams were on 1-1. For Australia, Gowers scored the equalizer in the 24th minute while Vivek Sagar Prasad scored the equalizer in the 42nd minute for India.
In the shootout, Jalevsky, Bele and Jeremy Edwards scored for Australia while Manpreet Singh could only make the only goal for India. Sardar Singh, Lalit Upadhyay and Harmanpreet Singh could not score on behalf of India.
Australia had earlier won the title in 2016 in the final by defeating India in the shootout.
The Indian team did not have the advantage of two penalty corners in the first quarter of the match, while Australia made a 1-0 lead in the 24th minute by converting a penalty corner into the first. Gould scored it for Australia. Australia kept this edge for half time.
In the 33rd minute of the second half, India got its fourth penalty corner. But Manpreet could not embrace this opportunity. India continued its attack and in the 37th minute India asked for a referral for the penalty but its referrals were rejected.
In the 42nd minute of the match, India got that problem a big success when Vivek Sagar Prasad made the field goal with a score of 1-1. India maintained this equality till the end of the third quarter.
The fourth and last quarter of the match was quite exciting. India had the chance to take an early lead in the 54th minute but Australia’s goalkeeper did not allow the Indian team to take advantage of this magnificent defense.
Five minutes was over for the end of the match but none of the two teams could take the lead and the match went into the shootout, where Australia defeated India 3-1 to win the title.
Earlier, in this tournament of six teams, hosts Netherlands got the third spot by defeating Olympic champion Argentina 2-0 in another match of the day. Belgium defeated Pakistan 2-1 to finish fifth.
