Times of India: Dense fog forces FIH to reschedule match timings of Jr WC

Lucknow, Dec 8 () Adverse weather conditions today forced the International Hockey Federation to reschedule the evening match timings of the men’s Junior Hockey World Cup, which began at the Major Dhyan Chand Astroturf Stadium.
The FIH said in a statement that the timing of last match of every day from now onwards has been advanced due to dense fog.

“Due to persistent concerns surrounding the heavy fog that has been present in the early mornings and late evenings at the Junior Hockey World Cup 2016, the FIH, in consultation with Hockey India and our global broadcast partner Star Sports, has made the proactive decision to make adjustments to the match schedule,” the FIH said.

“With the existing adverse weather conditions set to continue, the FIH felt it was important to review the schedule in order to minimise any further disruption,” it added.

In fact, today’s last match between India and Canada started 15 minutes early from its scheduled start of 7 pm after a colourful and musical opening ceremony, which was attended by UP Governor Ram Naik.

As per the revised scheduled announced by FIH, the last match of every day will now be played from 6 pm instead of earlier scheduled 7 pm and 8 pm starts.

“For all subsequent days, the final match of the day will commence at 18.00 hrs IST. To achieve this, two pool matches will now be played on Tuesday 13th December, which was originally the designated rest day,” the FIH said.

The FIH decision came after dense fog yesterday engulfed the stadium, situated on the outskirts of the city, forcing the Malaysian team to delay its practice session by half an hour.

Such was the weather condition that the stadium was completely invisible for some time due to dense fog which cleared up to some extent as time progressed but reappeared, forcing the Malaysian team to cut short its training session.