India celebrate Junior Hockey World Cup triumph; captain Harjeet Singh promises bright future

New Delhi: India on Sunday celebrated their second Junior Hockey World Cup triumph even as the winning captain Harjeet Singh promises a bright future.

Indian colts defeated Belgium 2-1 in the Lucknow final. India, as expected, dominated the game and by the half-time hooter, the score-line read 2-0 in hosts' favour.

The visitors scored a consolation goal in the dying minutes before the young Indian team, in unison with the packed crowd, start their celebration at the Major Dyan Chand Astroturf stadium.

India thus became the only other nation than Germany to have won the title more than once. India last won the title way back in 2001, 15 years ago.

Soon after the match, many took to social media platforms to congratulate the team. Union Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP president Amit Shah, former cricketer VVS Laxman, Sports Minister Vijay Goel, Boxer Virender Singh and former hockey player Viren Rasquinha were some of the first ones to congratulate the team.

Congratulations to Team India & supporters as India lifts the #HJWC2016 by beating Belgium in the finals. Well done! @TheHockeyIndia — Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) December 18, 2016

Amazing performance by our young guns. Many congratulations to Indian Junior Men Hockey Team on winning the World Cup tittle. Jai Hind. pic.twitter.com/KiKf4bb1I4 — Amit Shah (@AmitShah) December 18, 2016

Congratulations @TheHockeyIndia on winning the Junior Hockey World Cup You all made us proud #HJWC2016 — VVS Laxman (@VVSLaxman281) December 18, 2016

Congratulations Team India on winning the Junior #Hockey World Cup! Belgian chocolates are good but nothing beats Indian laddoos#INDvBEL pic.twitter.com/UFjipxzEre — Vijay Goel (@VijayGoelBJP) December 18, 2016

Congratulations Indian men's hockey team @TheHockeyIndia for winning Junior World Cup by defeating Belgium.  — Vijender Singh (@boxervijender) December 18, 2016

Congratulations to the Indian team for winning the Junior World Cup aft 15 yrs. spectacular win over Belgium. Jai Hind@TheHockeyIndia — Viren Rasquinha (@virenrasquinha) December 18, 2016

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan also hailed the win as superb.

"Our junior hockey team displayed superb attacking play, attractive trapping, wrist work and scored two field goals," she said in her message.

But the best message, as usual came from Virender Sehwag. Here's what he said,

Enjoy the Belgian Chocolate boys.
Fantastic effort to win the #JuniorHockeyWorldCup . Super Proud!#IndVBel pic.twitter.com/qK0kxfb3BQ — Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) December 18, 2016

The skipper Harjeet, however, was not done with the win. He said the current team will "give a lot of joy" to the countrymen in near future.

"I would like to thank all the players who aimed to win this trophy. Everybody has put in a lot of hardwork under discipline. We all had one aim and we thankfully managed to achieve that today," an emotional Harjeet said at the post-match press conference.

"The crowd support gave us a lot of confidence but we played according to our structure which we have been implementing for the last two-and-a-half years. This team is going to give a lot of joy to you all in the future," he said.