The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : More innovations in PHL league

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Saturday, Nov 11, 2006
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More innovations in PHL league

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: In keeping with its innovative attitude, the Premier Hockey League (PHL) will introduce a one-on-one tie-break rule in the third edition to be held in Chennai and Chandigarh from January.

Instead of the penalty shoot-off for the tie-break, five players each from the two teams will try to score a goal, one by one with only the goalkeeper challenging them. Each player will start from the 25-yard line and will have eight seconds to beat the goalkeeper and score the goal. There can be multiple attempts within those eight seconds.

"We wanted to give the players a fair chance to take a calculated shot rather than shoot blindly'', said the Managing Director of ESPN Software India Ltd., R.C. Venkateish, as he discussed the new rule at a media conference.

The prize money for the winner has been increased to Rs. 40 lakhs from Rs. 30 lakhs, while the runner-up will get Rs. 15 lakhs instead of 10 lakhs.

The captains for the seven teams were announced. Dilip Tirkey has been named the captain for Orissa Steelers, while Devesh Chauhan (Hyderabad Sultans), Kanwalpreet Singh (Sher-e-Jalandhar), Viren Rasquinha (Maratha Warriors), Arjun Halappa (Bangalore Hi Fliers), Adam Sinclair (Chennai Veerans) and Rajpal Singh (Chandigarh Dynamos) will lead the other teams. Each team will have three foreign players and they would be drafted in due course. Each team will have 15 Indian players. Some of the teams do not have 15 players at the moment, and those vacancies would be filled by players selected on the basis of their performance in the Nehru, MCC and Surjit tournaments according to the president of the IHF, K.P.S. Gill.

All the teams will play each other twice in a round-robin league and the top two will play a best of three final. The league will feature 42 matches apart from the final. There will not be a second tier this time, but the last-placed team would be put in a qualifying event along with some other teams for the next edition.

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