We can be proud of our silver medal winning effort: Sardar

India might have failed to break their Commonwealth Games title jinx for the second consecutive time but captain Sardar Singh has a lot of positives to take from the event and said the silver medal was a "well- deserved" achievement for the past masters of the game.
Sardar said the young side can be "proud of their achievement" in the just-concluded Glasgow Games despite losing 0-4 to world champions Australia in the final.
"It was disappointment to miss out on the gold time but we are satisfied with what we have achieved. The boys can be proud of their achievement," Sardar told PTI in an interview after arriving from Glasgow.

"The silver medal was well-deserved because we lost against a side which is the best in the world and are currently well ahead of us.
"Even though we couldn't match them in the final as we expected but we gave them a tough fight in the group stage. We lost 2-4 in the group stage and that speaks volumes about our improvement," the ace midfielder said.
Even though the two teams were class apart, it was an ideal opportunity for the eight-time Olympic champions India to avenge their 0-8 thrashing at the hands of mighty Australia in the 2010 edition of the Games in New Delhi.

But it was not to be as Australia produced a clinical performance and scored two goals in each half to secure their fifth consecutive Commonwealth Games title since the introduction of hockey in the quadrennial event in 1998.
But irrespective of the final result, Sardar feels they grew as a team during the Glasgow Games and exuded confidence of sealing a direct berth in the 2016 Rio Olympics by winning the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea.