2012 World Series Hockey

Bridgestone World Series Hockey 2012
Tournament details
Dates	29 February – 2 April
Administrator(s)	Indian Hockey Federation
Format(s)	Double Round-robin and Knock-out
Host(s)	India
Venue(s)	8
Teams	8
Final positions
Champions	Sher-e-Punjab (1st title)
Runner-up	Pune Strykers
Third Place	Chandigarh Comets; Karnataka Lions
Tournament summary
Matches played	59
Goals scored	327 (5.54 per match)
Player of the tournament	Gurjinder Singh (CCO)
Most goals	Gurjinder Singh (CCO) (19); Syed Imran Warsi (CCH) (19)
	2012-13 →

2012 World Series Hockey better known as Bridgestone World Series Hockey, abbreviated as Bridgestone WSH, was the first season of the hockey tournament World Series Hockey, a professional league for field hockey in India. The tournament was to take place from 17 December 2011 to 22 January 2012 but later was postponed to 29 February 2012 owing to Olympic qualifiers.^[1] Eight teams took part in this competition. The opening ceremony and the first match was held at Sector 42 Stadium, Chandigarh, where Bhopal Badshahs beat Chandigarh Comets 4–3.^[2]

The inaugural season of the WSH was won by Sher-e-Punjab by defeating Pune Strykers 5–2 in the final at Mahindra Hockey Stadium, Mumbai and thus became the first champions of WSH. Chandigarh Comets' drag-flicker Gurjinder Singh was named WSH Rockstar (Player of the tournament) (19 goals in 15 matches) who also shared the golden stick with Pakistan's Syed Imran Warsi for 19 goals apiece.^[3]

Venues

Following eight venues will host the matches of eight franchises on a home and away basis: Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bhopal, Jalandhar, Chandigarh, Bangalore and Chennai will host the matches of eight franchises on a home and away basis.

Originally, nine venues were selected and upgraded with floodlights, replay screens, and scoreboards but organisers decided not to have any matches in Hyderabad's Gachibowli Hockey Stadium.^[4]

Players

The players for the eight teams were finalized on 28 November based on the draft system.^[5]

Team	Captain	Coach
Bhopal Badshahs	Sameer Dad	Vasudevan Baskaran
Chandigarh Comets	Rehan Butt	Harendra Singh
Chennai Cheetahs	Brent Livermore	José Brasa
Delhi Wizards	Shakeel Abbasi	Roelant Oltmans
Karnataka Lions	Arjun Halappa	Jude Felix
Mumbai Marines	Adrian D'Souza	Andrew Meredith
Pune Strykers	Ken Pereira	Gundeep Singh
Sher-e-Punjab	Prabhjot Singh	Rajinder Singh

Umpires

Amar Singh Negi (IND)
A.D. Cariappa (IND)
A.N. Somaiah (IND)
Bhupinder Singh (IND)
Dominic Savio (IND)
Hardeep Singh Saini (IND)
Jaspreet Sidhu (IND)
Lokraju (IND)
Marc Knülle (GER)
Parnam Singh (IND)
Paul Ludwig (AUS)
Pradeep Kalia (IND)
R.S. Suryaprakash (IND)
Satinder Kumar Sharma (IND)
Scott O'Brian (AUS)
Shridharan Thamba (IND)
Stewart Dearing (AUS)

Exhibition match

An exhibition match was organised on 20 December at Sector 42 Stadium, Chandigarh. Match was played between WSH World XI and WSH India XI. A one-sided match from the start was won by World XI. The World XI was captained by Brent Livermore and coached by José Brasa and Andrew Meredith. Prabhjot Singh led the India XI and coached by Jude Felix and Harendra Singh.^[6]

Match timings according to Indian Standard Time (UTC +05:30)

20 December 2011
19:30

WSH India XI

2–7

WSH World XI

Thakur

17'
Pillay

32'

Reardon

10'
Huber

32'
Grimes

38'
Maguire

40'
Kelly

55', 59'
Seddon

67'

Sector 42 Stadium, Chandigarh

Team Composition

WSH India XI
Player	Position
Bikash Toppo	Forward
Birendra Lakra	Forward
Deepak Thakur	Forward
Dhanraj Pillay	Forward
Inderjit Singh Chadha	Forward
Innocent Kullu	Forward
Lalit Kumar Upadhyay	Forward
Prabhjot Singh (c)	Forward
Sameer Dad	Forward
Ignace Tirkey	Midfielder
Prabodh Tirkey	Midfielder
Tyron Pereira	Midfielder
Vivek Gupta	Midfielder
Diwakar Ram	Defender
Harpal Singh	Defender
Jaswinder Singh	Defender
Samir Baxla	Defender
William Xalco	Defender
Adrian D'Souza	Goalkeeper
Baljeet Singh	Goalkeeper

WSH World XI
Player	Position
Benedikt Sperling	Forward
Chris Seddon	Forward
Connor Grimes	Forward
Eli Matheson	Forward
Peter Kelly	Forward
Roderik Huber	Forward
Steven Faaij	Forward
Sukhwinder Singh Gabbar	Forward
Tariq Aziz	Forward
Adnan Maqsood	Midfielder
Brent Livermore (c)	Midfielder
Casey Henwood	Midfielder
David Seddon	Midfielder
Jiwa Mohan	Midfielder
Joseph Reardon	Midfielder
Lloyd Stephenson	Midfielder
Phelie Maguire	Midfielder
Robert Green	Midfielder
Andrew Eversden	Defender
Jesse Mahieu	Defender
Maik Gunther	Defender
Mathew Phillips	Defender
Melchior Looijen	Defender
Zeeshan Ashraf	Defender
Devesh Chauhan	Goalkeeper

Opening ceremony

Opening ceremony of Bridgestone World Series Hockey was held at Sector 42 Stadium of Chandigarh followed by the inaugural match between Chandigarh Comets and Bhopal Badshahs.^{[citation needed]}

League progression

Team		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14		SF	F
		League Phase															Knockout
	Bhopal Badshahs	3	3	6	7	10	10	13	13	13	13	14	17	17	17
	Chandigarh Comets	0	0	3	3	6	9	12	12	15	18	19	22	25	28		L
	Chennai Cheetahs	0	3	6	6	7	7	7	10	13	16	16	16	19	19
	Delhi Wizards	3	3	3	6	6	7	7	10	13	13	13	16	16	19
	Karnataka Lions	0	0	0	3	3	6	6	9	9	12	15	18	21	21		L
	Mumbai Marines	0	3	3	6	9	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	10	13
	Pune Strykers	3	6	7	8	9	9	12	12	12	12	15	15	18	21		W	L
	Sher-e-Punjab	3	6	7	7	7	10	13	16	19	22	22	25	25	25		W	W

Note: The total points at the end of each group match are listed.										Win			Loss			Draw
Note: Click on the points (league phase) or W/L (knockout) to see the summary for the match.										Team was eliminated in the league phase.

Results

All matches' timings according to Indian Standard Time (UTC+05:30)

League Phase

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Chandigarh Comets	14	9	1	4	46	34	+12	28
Sher-e-Punjab	14	8	1	5	45	35	+10	25
Karnataka Lions	14	7	0	7	34	40	–6	21
Pune Strykers	14	6	3	5	41	42	–1	21
Delhi Wizards	14	6	1	7	36	37	–1	19
Chennai Cheetahs	14	6	1	7	41	43	–2	19
Bhopal Badshahs	14	5	2	7	32	37	–5	17
Mumbai Marines	14	4	1	9	32	39	–7	13

						Qualified for Semi-Finals
						Eliminated

29 February 2012
20:30

Chandigarh Comets

3–4

Bhopal Badshahs

Gurjinder

22', 57'
Jasjit

29'