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Whereas, the
craze for the games like Football & Tennis is getting momentum
in American & other European countries, the cricket fever is in
full swing in the Asian countries. Especially, the cricket is
everything in South Asian countries. The countries like
Bangladesh & Sri Lanka have not only organized their cricket
teams but they are throwing a challenge to the world teams in
cricket also. Undoubtedly the media has played an important role
to make cricket popular in Asian countries. The increasing
network of the television has played the most important role. At
present cricket has become everything. Cricket has entered in
the life of a common man. But how far it is proper that the few
professionals have taken rights to telecast the cricket matches?
In the last
days, a Twenty-20 world cup in cricket was organized in South
Africa. Although all the matches were thrilling & interesting
but two Semifinals & a Final caused a shivering sensation to the
lovers of cricket, the Semifinals were between India Vs
Australia & Pakistan Vs New Zealand & the final was between
India & Pakistan. These matches were centre of excitement for
the public. But the common people couldn’t watch matches being
telecast. The reason was that a TV channel company has bought
all the rights to telecast it. It simply means that only that TV
channel can telecast these matches that have got rights to
telecast the cricket World Cup. If we talk about the countries
of Southern Asia, especially India, Pakistan & Bangladesh, we
see that most of its population lives in villages. Those people
mostly lack the television ownership. Generally the national
programmes are telecast on their TV sets. Whereas the only
private channel that has got the rights to telecast the World
Cup, can’t be received unless there is a cable network. If there
is no cable network, the dish available in the market, being
sold by many companies can be made use of to watch the matches.
But all these things whether cable network or dish can only be
made available by the rich people or by the dwellers of the citi
As it was
observed that on one side, there was a final match between the
traditional cricket rivals India & Pakistan, being fought in the
playground & on the other side, the common people were craving
to watch the final on their TVs. The Indian Doordarshan was not
telecasting this match. Undoubtedly, the electronic media &
different TV channels have molded themselves in the
globalization. It is also true that profession can’t be linked
with the feelings. But, can this so called professionalism, ban
the rights of watching a thrilling match of players of one’s own
country? Can the rule of telecast not be liberalized to the
extent that the people of the country, whose players are playing
the match to see it? Or the national TV channel is available for
the people of the country? If there can’t be such a setup then
what else can it be called but only a planned conspiracy against
the people of that country? Clearly this electronic media
aroused the interest of the people by its open telecast in the
beginning. When the people became habitual of inebriation, some
professionals deprived them to watch by buying the rights to
telecast. This professional maneuvering means that if someone
wants to watch the match, he must arrange for the dish, may not
for his bread & butter.
This craze for
watching cricket matches has given good chances of earning to
professionals & at the same time, it has compelled India to turn
again towards its golden age of games. People tend to forget
another national game of the country – hockey. From 1928 to
1956, it was golden age of hockey. During this period, India
played 24 matches & won all of them. India scored 178 goals in
all. It means the average score was 7.43. Hockey is the only
game in which India won 8 Gold Medals. The highest award of
games in India is the Arjun Award. By now, only hockey players
succeeded to secure this award maximum number of times. Today we
are well known to the names of Sachin Tendulkar & Saurav Ganguly.
But it was an age when the names such as Dhyanchand, K D Singh
Babu, Pragat Singh, Ajit Pal Singh, Gagan Ajit Singh, Zafar
Iqbal, Bhaskaran, Aslam Sher Khan, as players of hockey were
well known in the world.
First of all
Indian hockey federation was organized in 1928 in Gwalior.
Hockey team was the first team to go on world tour in 1932. It
toured places such as, Malaya, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Omaha,
Philadelphia, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paraguay, Budapest etc. &
brought credit to India. Undoubtedly, the revolution in media
has enabled us to know instantly about the games of the world
level players, their records & their extraordinary talents. But
there was the golden age of hockey & electronic media was in its
infancy, even at that time the name of Dhyanchand was well known
by the people of the world. The world record in 1936 in Berlin
Olympics set by Indian Hockey team has not reached yet. In this
match there were 38 goals in all. Out of these, the captain of
Indian hockey team Dhyanchand scored 11 goals. Dhyanchand was
called the magician of hockey stick.
The
man who wished to win the world was Hitler. He was a dictator &
once at the time of the dinner, he put a proposal before
Dhyanchand. He offered him the title of Colonel, if he accepted
the citizenship of Germany. But Dhyanchand, who was a patriot to
the backbone & full of Indian ideology, refused this offer.
Because of hockey, the name of Dhyanchand touched the heights
that Bradman’s in Cricket & Pele’s in Football. The adorers of
Dhyanchand crossed all the limits in Vienna. A statue of
Dhyanchand has been set up in the memory of Dhyanchand in Vienna
in which he has been shown with four hands & a hockey stick in
each hand. The people of Vienna say that a man with two hands &
a stick can’t play hockey as Dhyanchand used to play. So it is
proper to show him in this form.
Anyhow, India
has won the Twenty-20 World Cup in Cricket. Before it, India was
the winner of World Cup in Cricket in 1983. It was an event that
happened 24 years ago. Undoubtedly, the cricket players of India
deserve to be congratulated for this success. But the fame of
the success of Cricket, ignoring the success in Hockey & this
craze for the Cricket & to fall a prey to a professional circle,
doesn’t look proper.
October 2007
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