Women's World Cup 2017: Heartbreak at Lord's, but hearts won in India

Cricket - Women's Cricket World Cup Final - England vs India - London, Britain - July 23, 2017 India players look dejected at the end of the match Action Images via Reuters/John Sibley - RTX3CLLT

The Indian women's cricket team lost to hosts England by nine runs in the final of the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup at Lord's Cricket Ground on Sunday.

Chasing a target of 229 runs, India was bowled out for 219 runs in the penultimate over, despite an 86-run-knock by Punam Raut. Harmanpreet Kaur and Veda Krishnamurthy scored 51 and 35 respectively.

Earlier in the day, Jhulan Goswami's bowling figures of 3-23 and Poonam Yadav's 2-36 had helped India restrict England for a chase-able total.

In spite of the loss, the Indian women's team managed to win hearts. Thousands of people across the country and observers around the world took to Twitter to recognise the team's performance in the tournament.

Here are some of the top tweets:

Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, who does not tweet too often, was virtually live tweeting as the match reached its end. He congratulated the English team and said that he felt for the Indian team.

Feel for all of you, #WomenInBlue! You were good throughout but sometimes it is not meant to be. Congrats England on winning #WWC17Final!

— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 23, 2017

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had wished the Indian team with separate tweets for every players, earlier in the day, said that he was proud of the team. He said that the team showed tenacity and skills throughout the tournament.

Our women cricketers gave their best today. They have shown remarkable tenacity & skill through the World Cup. Proud of the team! @BCCIWomen

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 23, 2017

Executive Chairman of Mahindra Group, Anand Mahindra called the loss "irrelevant".

#WWCfinal The loss is irrelevant. What is historic is that a billion Indians' hearts were beating & bleeding for our Women's team

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) July 23, 2017

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar who was at Lord's to watch the match tweeted this picture of him sharing a laugh with the Smriti Mandhana and Poonam Yadav.

Even Broken Hearts Can Laugh!!
These Women have started a revolution & I couldn't be more proud