Once upon a time
What is the difference between Kabir Khan and Sjoerd Marijne? The former coached the Indian women’s hockey team to World Cup glory. Eleven years later, all Marijne has managed is a quarterfinal exit, which is an improvement (thanks largely to the revised format in this edition) for our eves on their last four appearances. Yet, as they stood on the verge of making the semis, the relative indifference in viewership could not have been more striking. Following Aditya Sharma’s question in “A look at Indian sport from various angles” (www.sportstarlive.com, Your Opinion, August 29, 2017), we may wonder if Chak De! India should have inspired and sustained a lot more attention for women’s hockey than is observed presently. Or for hockey in general.
It has to be acknowledged that popularity of a certain sport over another is influenced by a labyrinth of cultural factors. When it comes to commanding fanatical interest in a sport, the opportune communion between successes in the international arena and nationalist sentiments goes a long way. After all, the contribution of India’s World Cup win in 19■3 towards religionising cricket and the World Twenty20 triumph in 2007 towards transforming the shortest format into a cash cow cannot be undermined.
Football’s sobriquet of ‘the beautiful game’ suggests volumes on the role aesthetics play in its pervasive reach all around the world. From the viewers’ perspective, the simplicity of following the gameplay has acutely informed the pleasures of watching football — one has to simply stay with the ball. Hockey follows the same core principles for deriving aesthetic value. But, in the eyes of the couch potato variant of sports enthusiasts, the contrast may well be attributed to the challenges of covering hockey games for television screens.
The relative inconspicuousness of the hockey ball defines the central issue for the broadcaster. While the rapidly moving ball as it is shot from stick to stick often runs the risk of evading detection, a graver problem lies in capturing footage at the business end — the ‘D’ or penalty area. This is where action gets the most frantic, and where the camera consistently fails to ‘stay with the ball’. It leaves the anxious viewer guessing the fate of the play for a substantial length of time. This also denies him the vicarious agency through the image of the player in act at the most impactful of moments.
Ratul Das is an assistant professor at Heritage Law College, Kolkata.
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