News

Lucknow, 25^th January 2013: Uttar Pradesh Wizards would hope that their skipper V R Raghunath would regain his scoring touch as they aim to avenge their first loss in the Hero Hockey India League when Ranchi Rhinos come calling on Saturday.

The Wizards went down 1-3 against the Rhinos in Ranchi on Thursday and the loss could be attributed to their inability to convert five of the six penalty corners they earned in the match. Raghunath, who has scored four goals so far in the competition, was clearly off colour and wasted all the five he was involved in.

The loss means that Delhi Waveriders are the only unbeaten team in the tournament and head the standings with 22 points, while Rhinos are second five points adrift but could slip to third if the Wizards manage to upset them on their home turf.

On Thursday, the Rhinos were definitely the better team but the Wizards stayed in the hunt till the last five minutes thanks to their goalkeeper George Bazeley.

The hosts, however, could take solace from the fact that they had completely dominated the Rhinos in their earlier home game and the crowd support is sure to spur the team up to get back to winning ways.

Home team captain, VR Raghunath, said, “We’ve had a superb start in the tournament. We lost our first match unfortunately against Ranchi the other night, but this is not going to slow us down one bit. We plan to forget all about our defeat and concentrate on getting our momentum back for tomorrow’s game”.

Away team Ranchi Rhinos Coach, Gregg Clark, said, “We have won a game against UP Wizards and look forward to doing the same tomorrow. The team is really confident and positive about tomorrow’s game. It was just bad luck that we missed so many Penalty Corners in our match against them, but if notice we have been scoring well in all other matches. We are here to win this tournament and that’s what we are going to do”.

The Hero Hockey India League is organised by Hockey India with official sanction from the International Hockey Federation (FIH). The inaugural season is being played from January 14 to February 10, 2013 in a home-and-away format. The five franchisee-based teams, consisting of the top hockey players from India and around the world, will compete for the prestigious trophy. Hero Motocorp Ltd. is the Title Sponsor of the league while Airtel is the Associate Sponsor. Star Sports, who is the Broadcast Partner, will be telecasting all matches live.

Saturdays game 26^th January: Uttar Pradesh Wizard’s vs Ranchi Rhinos at the Dhyan Chand Astroturf Stadium at 3 p.m.