Introduction of Premier Hockey League is the best thing that has happened to Indian hockey in the recent times. The PHL was successful in creating a definitive, positive imprint among the young generation, who otherwise perceive the sport as the one that constantly fails on international stage. The third edition of PHL starts at Chennai, the city that still has a vast following, on Thursday, the 4th January 2006. stick2hockey.com brings two parts of statistical highlights. The first part is as follows:
Statistical Highlight of Premier Hockey League (First Part)
•20 matches were played, four in a week, a match per day in the PHL 2005.
• 15 matches produced outright results; two matches saw golden-goal finish while two matches were decided on tie-breakers.
• One match was decided on sudden death in which minnows Chennai Veerans emerged triumphant.
• Of the 77 goals these 20 matches produced, more than 55% are field goals, only 4 goals from strokes.
• Only one match ended goal-less.
• 112 penalty corners were generated in the normal play time of 70 minutes of which 33 were converted for a 30% success rate.
• Hyderabad Sultans, Sher-e-Jalandhar and Chennai Veerans got equal number of penalty corners – 19.
• Title winners, Hyderabad Sultans, scored double the number of goals from penalty corners compared to silver medallist Sher-e-Jalandhar.
• Bangalore Hi-Fliers got the maximum number of penalty corners.
• Chennai Veerans and Bangalore Hi-Fliers are the only teams to miss penalty strokes in the 70-minute regulation time.
• More penalty corners were converted in Q3 (14).
• Q4 witnessed maximum field goals than any other quarter (12).
• 12 matches were decided by one-goal margin, making the PHL a highly-competitive event.
• Highest margin of victory (5-0) was obtained in just one match.
• Dhanraj Pillay and Tushar Khandker scored a golden goal apiece.
• Sher-e-Jalandhar and Hyderabad Sultans lost, 3 and 2 matches respectively, all by a goal deficit.
• Had Chennai Veerans, without a point till then, not taken two points from Hyderabad Sultans on 3rd February, Sultans would have won the PHL that day itself, ten days before the scheduled PHL finish. This match, thus, was a turning point of PHL that kept the interst alive till the last day.
• No penalty corners were converted in 7 matches.
• No Penalty-Stroke goals were scored in the first Quarter.
• Maratha Warriors and Bangalore Hi-Fliers were the only teams to waste 6 penalty corners in a match.
• Only Chennai Veerans had as many as seven under-21 players.
Dhanraj Pillay was the oldest player in the PHL while Hyderabad Sultan’s goalkeeper Sreejesh (16 years, 7 months and 23 days as on 31.12.2004) the youngest.
• Title winners Sultans posted the first and last goal of the PHL, ironically those two landmark goals coming from discarded, but deserving former internationals, Sameer Dad and Inderjeet Singh Chadha.
• Sultans were the only team to score at least a goal in every match followed by Chennai Veerans and Bangalore Hi-Fliers who made goals in all but one match.
• All the three medallists were the only sponsored teams in the field of five.
• Continuously in four matches, no goals were scored in Quarter 3.
• Three goals were scored in a quarter on four occasions.
• Between 12th Jan and 16th Feb, ESPN-Star sports telecast hockey for an average of 4 hours daily, which included ‘live’ and ‘repeat’ telecast, a unique record in the history of field hockey.
• No Penalty Stroke goals were scored after the 5th match
• Vivek Gupta and Arjun Halappa missed a stroke each in normal play time, 2 more by Arjun Halappa in tie-breakers.
• In the fourth week of PHL, four matches saw just a single goal in Q1.
• Bangalore Hi-Fliers conceded the maximum number of penalty corners, 29 in all, out of which 9 were converted by their rivals.
• Maratha Warriors and Sher-e-Jalandhar scored more field goals than their combined tally of goals from penalty corner and strokes.
• Sher-e-Jalandhar scored 11 field goals, maximum for any team at Hyderabad.
• Bangalore Hi-Fliers and Hyderabad Sultans netted 9 goals each through Penalty corners.
• By getting a green card in the first 3 matches, Baljit Singh Saini scored a dubious hat-trick in the PHL.
• Only in the second round, a match went without any cards, and the credit went to Chennai Veerans and Hydeerabad Sultans. It was played on 29th Jan.
• Only on one occasion, two players of the same team got marching orders (Yellow Cards) (Prabodh Tirkey and Irshad Ali Vs Sher-e-Jalandhar).
• Both the goalkeepers got green card during the tie-breaker time only once.
• Of the 25 yellow cards, Maratha Warriors and Bangalore Hi-Fliers shared 14 of them.
Note: The above is extracted from Western Union Money Transfer International Hockey Year Book 2006. The se