KARACHI, 2 September 2005 — Indian skipper Dilip Tirkey will lead Sindh Qalandars in the inaugural edition of the Super Hockey League to be held here at the Hockey Club of Pakistan Stadium from Sept. 8 to 18. Tirkey, one of the most highly-rated defenders in international hockey, is among the six Indian players seeing action in the Super League. Each of the visiting Indian players has been farmed out to the six participating teams of the league being organized by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) at an estimated cost of Rs20 million, including the Rs900,000 appearance money for the Indian guest players.
Tirkey will play under his former adversary Ahmed Alam, an experienced goalie who captained Pakistan at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Other prominent players among the 20-man Sindh line-up are double Olympian Kashif Jawwad, winger Adnan Zakir and discarded Olympian Sameer Hussain. Former Pakistan captain Nasir Ali is the team’s coach.
India’s Sandeep Singh, a short corner specialist, goes to Shahn-e-Punjab.
The Punjab team led by the current Pakistan captain Muhammad Saqlain have been tagged pre-touranament title favorites. The team also boast Pakistan team’s in-form goalie Salman Akber, Olympian Tariq Imran, national team midfielder Ghazanfar Ali and Tariq Aziz.
Frontier Falcons will benefit from the services of India’s battle-scarred midfielder Viren Risquenha. He would be captained by the aging Rahim Khan in a team that do not include any prominent player apart from youngster Yasir Islam.
Indian goalie Adrian D’Souza will stand for Baloch Lions under the captaincy of former Pakistan skipper Muhammad Sarwar. Some of the prominent players in this team are fullbacks Zeeshan Ashraf and Imran Warsi, midfielder Imran Khan and striker Shakeel Abbasi.
Prolific Indian striker Arjun Hallapa would be Northern Cavaliers’ guest player. Cavaliers are led by former Pakistan captain Nadeem ND and include players like star striker Rehan Butt, midfielder Dilawar Hussain, Akhtar Ali, Muhammad Imran and goalie Nasir Ahmed.
Mercurial forward Gagan Ajit Singh would strengthen Captail Dynamos’ attack. Athens Olympian Mudassar Ali Khan is the captain of this team that also includes Ali Raza and Adnan Maqsood. The teams would be competing for a prize basket of Rs 5 million with the champions getting the top purse of Rs 1 million. The event’s runner-ups would earn Rs500,000 while the team finishing third would get Rs300,000.
The league’s best player would get a cash prize or Rs100,000 while there would also be rewards for best player in each of the 18 matches to be played during the competition.
