The Indian Premier League (IPL) on Wednesday advanced the timing of their first match on March 13 to avoid a clash with the final of the Hero Honda FIH Hockey World Cup in New Delhi. The IPL accepted a request from FIH on Wednesday and agreed to start the third edition matches on March 13 either before or after the World Cup final.
Thus, the first match on March 13 between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals in Mumbai will start at 3 pm instead of the usual 4 pm. IPL chairman and commissioner, Lalit Modi, announced this at a press conference here. The Hockey World Cup final is scheduled from 6.05 pm.
“We hope to complete our match before that so that there is no clash with the Hockey World Cup final,” said Modi.
Speaking on the occasion, FIH president, Leandro Negre, said the sport’s world governing body was hoping to start a World Club Championship soon and wanted India to have a domestic league on the lines of the IPL.
“We can learn a lot from IPL, which is being run successfully and has become very popular. Hockey is India’s national sport while cricket is the most popular one, collaboration between the two is good for both,” he said.
Negre said the proposal for a league would be taken up soon after the HI elections and the winner of the league would represent India in the World Club Championship. HI officials said the issue of the now-suspended Premier Hockey League (PHL) would be solved after the elections by either reconstituting the board of the company set up to run PHL or by setting up a new company. Negre, however, said the HI board could take up such cases soon after the elections and give affiliation to regional bodies.
{{/usCountry}}Negre said the proposal for a league would be taken up soon after the HI elections and the winner of the league would represent India in the World Club Championship. HI officials said the issue of the now-suspended Premier Hockey League (PHL) would be solved after the elections by either reconstituting the board of the company set up to run PHL or by setting up a new company. Negre, however, said the HI board could take up such cases soon after the elections and give affiliation to regional bodies.
{{/usCountry}}Website launched
The FIH and World Cup organisers on Wednesday launched the official website of the event starting on February 28. The website www.msnindia.com/worldcuphockey will have news, fixtures, results, points table, teams and profiles, photo gallery, videos, etc, besides hosting the FIH microsite giving the history of the World Cup and results of previous editions.