Commentary on DD-Sports

It was Saturday again, and as usual I got up early in the morning. Usually on weekdays, I get up around 9am, and on weekends, I get up around 7am. I find that quite unbelievable and strange.

I was surfing the channels, when I noticed that DD-sports was telecasting the final of Junior Asia Cup (hockey), the match India won against Korea two days back. I hadn't seen the match live, so I decided to watch it.

One thing I have noticed is that India always does well in the junior hockey event, but fares poorly in the senior category. I guess the other teams graduate very rapidly and we don't when it comes to playing at the higher level.

The soul of world hockey has changed, ever since "astro-turf" was introduced. Hockey is no longer "dribble past the opponent" game. It has become more of positional play, a quick one-touch game. Very much like football. If you ever see the Dutch playing hockey, you will understand what I mean. We continue to play the same old hockey which was popular when hockey was played on grass. Another major issue with Indian hockey is that we don't have a penalty corner specialist. Diwakar Ram is a budding talent, but he is still not in the class of Bram Lomans of Holland or Sohail Abbas of Pakistan.

The highlight of the programme was the pathetic English commentary on DD-sports. The whole commentary was made up of max. 4 words per sentence. The funny part was one commentator sounded drunk, and was interrupting his partner. Here are some excerpts -

• Koreans moving fastly
• Here come the Korea
• The defence of the Korea
• Yes Yes. Indians takes the move. On the attack.
• Right, right. You are right. Chance missed.