Sudeshna Guha Roy
What happened with the Indian team on Monday night against South Africa in their last Pool B match of the Hockey World Cup at the national capital surely depicts one thing; there are huge flaws in the video referral system and the way it is being used during the matches.
For those who might have just missed the whole point being discussed here, India and South Africa were at loggerheads at the Major Dhyanchand Stadium on Monday playing their last match of their pool. In the second half, both the teams were neck-to-neck with two goals each in their kitty.
During the course of the game, South Africa had a chance of claiming a penalty corner, which they didn’t. Two minutes later, when India earned a goal, taking a 3-2 lead over the opponents, the South Africans cried foul and asked for a video referral for the penalty breach that took place quite sometime back. The referral, however, did go in their favour but it snapped India of their third goal, bringing the game back to 2-2.
Happy time for South Africa, for sure! But the whole incident left the Indians enraged with many unanswered questions! Wasn’t it unfair for the South Africans to ask for a referral so late? Shouldn’t there be a time limit within which a player or a team can ask for a referral? How many referrals per team should be allowed?
With all these questions and many more, we went to Kukoo Walia, a former international hockey umpire and the commentator of the very match. Like all, he too was amazed at the way the whole incident was treated.
“The South Africans took too much time to refer. That is absolutely unfair. They referred to the umpire two minutes after the breach, which is too long!” said Walia.
“The breach happened. The game continued for sometime and India scored a legitimate goal. The goal was awarded to India. And after a goal is awarded, it should not have been taken back. The game shouldn’t have restarted,” he added.
The game ended in a tie with both the teams scoring three goals each. But had the goal been awarded to India, the score would probably have been in India’s favour!
However, let bygones be bygones! What the whole episode does is put serious question marks on the rules on which the system of umpire referrals function?
“Surely, it does,” agreed Walia. “The rules for umpire referrals must be more strict. The time limit is very important. A player or a team can refer immediately after a breach, not after that.”
“Black and white rules for referrals must be set. Primarily, only one referral per team must be allowed. Then, only 10-15 seconds maximum should be permissible for a team to ask for a video referral.”
“Consistency amongst the umpires lacked completely. The same kind of strictness was not shown in other matches the way they were shown in the matches concerning India,” he said.
“Faulty system did us in, or we never know, the match would have ended up differently; probably, we would have won this encounter,” Walia finally said.
After Monday’s match, all we can hope from the International Hockey Federation (FIH) is some serious thought being put into the referral system, or else, more and more matches may end-up with faulty results on the scoreboard!
First Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 17:22