Meredith appointed WSH technical director

Tribune News Service

Former Australian player Dennis Meredith, a member of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) panel of tournament directors, has been appointed technical director for the World Series Hockey (WSH), to be held from December 15 to January 22.

The WSH, with a prize money content of around $ 2 million, will be held under the aegis of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), and will involve 176 leading players from India and abroad. The event, a multi-city franchise-based league will have 61 matches. The players will be allocated to the teams based on the international accepted and practised ‘draft’ system.

The Indian players expected to feature in the league are Rajpal Singh, Sandeep Singh, Adrian D’Souza, Sardar Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Arjun Halappa, Diwakar Ram, Bharat Chetri, Dhananjay Mahadik, Shivendra Singh, Mandeep Antil, S.V. Sunil, Roshan Minz, William Xalxo and Prabodh Tirkey.

Pakistani players Rehan Butt, Zeeshan Ashraf, Mudassar Ali, Tariq Aziz, Adnan Maqsood, Waseem Ahmad, Syed Imran Warsi and Shakeel Abbasi have also confirmed their participation. The first edition will comprise eight teams with matches across eight cities, spread over Delhi, Punjab, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The other two venues will be selected from among Bhopal, Pune, Rourkela, Ranchi, Manipur, Lucknow and Kolkata.

As technical director, Meredith will be responsible for all the “hockey” elements in the WSH. He first visited India as an umpire in the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi. After his playing days, Meredith switched over to officiating and had the honour of umpiring in Olympic and World Cup matches, before being appointed as the umpires’ manager and technical delegate at FIH tournaments.