To The Honourable Union Sports Minister,
Dear Sir,
I do not know the reason why you were not present to watch the finals of the Asia Cup Hockey tournament at Chennai on Sunday. Like I do not know the reason(s) for moving Hockey from the priority list to the general list, ironically announced on a day when India was playing at the prestigious Sultan Azlan Shah tournament and booked a berth for the semi-finals.
Am sure you have plenty of reasons, but had you been in Chennai or had an opportunity to watch the game on television, you would have realised that the decision to remove it as a priority sport was unfortunate.
However, this letter is not about you alone. It is also about the poor coverage the tournament received on television news channels and the print media. They were busy covering and devoting much time and space to the Indian Cricket Team’s tour of England, the final of which we lost so badly that any lover of the game was ashamed to watch beyond the first 20 overs.
The story does not end here. One cannot blame the media alone, because the people who are in charge of Sports in this nation often know very little about it, and least about Hockey. It is for this reason that the day India was leading Thailand 10-0 at half time, two of the prominent news channels were covering, in their sports program at 7:30 PM, whether Sachin Tendulkar was to retire from playing One Day Internationals.
The discussion was endless and pure speculation, which ultimately proved to be a complete waste of time. The channels did not even bother to show a ticker telling the score of the hockey match in progress.
It's just another example of how those in-charge of sports in television news channels never can look beyond cricket since they know precious little about Hockey or any other sport for that matter.
I am not anti-Cricket. This is not a Cricket vs Hockey match. There can’t be one. More teams played at the Asia Cup Hockey tournament than the total number, which play at the Cricket World Cup. There are 120 countries playing hockey and we are eighth in the ranking. There are 10 test playing nations in Cricket and India ranks 6th in the ICC one day international rankings. As I said there can be no comparison.
Hockey has given us much more than any other sport and about which tomes can be written but that is not the purpose here.
The purpose is to highlight the despicable attitude we have towards our national sport. Had media channels covered India’s performance at the Asia Cup they would have had much more to discuss. They could have talked about the 20-0 win over Sri Lanka; 16-0 over Thailand; and more importantly the 7-2 win over South Korea in the finals.
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South Korea is no minnow at Hockey quiet unlike Ireland or Kenya are to Cricket, defeating whom is covered more than extensively by the media. South Korea is one of the strongest Hockey playing nations in the world.
Had the coverage of the Hockey finals been done in a manner that it deserved, the TV channels could have generated TRPs and ratings. People would have seen magic with sticks on the field. They would have seen Prabhjot, Ignis, Dilip, Saradara, Rajpal and other players who deserve to be mentioned by name and who were playing the game like a well oiled machine.
The credit goes entirely to players and some, maybe, to the Coach who are changed with alarming frequency by the Federation. The credit is certainly not deserved by the Indian Hockey Federation, which, if anything, has done precious little for the betterment of the sport. It is the players alone who play for the glory of the nation and not for money because there hardly is any in Hockey.
There are no multinationals queuing up to sign Hockey players or sponsoring a match. The players were probably poorer even after winning a match on account of the controversial rule of IHF, which penalizes them for every goal conceded. Least to say, the rule is absolutely ridiculous and ought to be withdrawn forthwith.
I do not know what the TRP ratings for Hockey would be but I surely know that those who did not watch India play South Korea at the finals in the Asia Cup are much poorer having not experienced the sheer thrill of India winning a big tournament.
Honourable Minister, I urge you, on behalf of those Indians who still watch Hockey with passion and love the game, to take back your decision of removing Hockey from the priority category. Instead do something more positive in its favour so that the morale of the players remains intact and they continue to climb new heights and restore the glories for which Indian Hockey was once famous for. They may also get you a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics next year, a prize that has long eluded us.
Yours truly,
Siddhartha Dave
(Dave is an Indian hockey fan. This letter first appeared on The Times of India.)
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