Look at what treatment Rediff is giving to Indian Hockey.
The England-India match report is NOT there in sports section. The link is there on hockey world cup page but that too is broken.
Not sure if these links below in Sports section are more important than India - England match report.
• Germany and the Netherlands in a battle of titans • WC Hockey: Australia edge past Spain • Gilly, MSD are similar captains: Rohit Sharma • China did it for Ronaldo's sake • MCC not bidding for IPL team
Re: Indian hockey not treated well
by S Shrikanth on Mar 07, 2010 05:12 AM
Indian media has always been victim of cricket bug due to commercial reasons, therefore do not give coverage about other sports. Even in 60s and 70s when Indian cricket team used to get whitewashed by other teams, the media used to give wide coverage. Even many magazines used to bring out Cricket specials twice a year.
Even the three Indian Sport Magazines - Sports Week(Bombay),Sport Star(Madras) and Sportsworld(Calcutta) used to have 90% of their content filled by cricket only.
But at the same time India used to be Hockey world champs and Olympic Gold medalist, Indian Sport magazines and newspapers used to ignore. Since media belongs to the elite industrialists, they supported cricket due to commercial reasons.
In today's match one thing was much to observe. After India fall behind 0-3 against England, it started playing attacking hocky and from that point onwards we could score 2 goals and created much more opportunity to score further goals (you will remember last min miss by Rajpal). This shows that if India start playing attacking hocky it would rank much higher.
Re: India need attacking hocky
by Sukhwinder Singh on Mar 07, 2010 02:11 AM
India only starts attacking when they are down by 2-3 goals. If they start attacking from the word go and take the lead then perhaps they'll do better.
In last three matches it was always opponent who scored first.
Re: Re: India need attacking hocky
by S Shrikanth on Mar 07, 2010 05:05 AM
My understanding is that Indian team got psychologically broken after drubbing by Australians and never could recover. It was similar to Indian cricket team got defeated by Bangladesh and could never recover and bowed out of World cup 2007 after losing tamely to Sri Lanka.
Since Indian hockey team had to undergo a lot of torture in the last one year due to administrative problems and they could not play international matches before World cup, they were psychologically very weak.
Re: England beat India 3-2
by S Shrikanth on Mar 06, 2010 10:18 PM
I do not know why a goal scored by India was disallowed!
Indian team is an inexperienced team and this was fully exposed today. But this is another issue as talent does not wait for experience. Boris Becker won Wimbledon at the age of 17 years beating stalwarts and defended it next year as well.
Low profile game of poors Hockey to high profile rich and elite game Cricket, the story is the same. They fail to perform in major tournaments.
Hockey team has some more chances to mature. They have Asian games and Commonwealth games this year. In commonwealth games they will have Australia, England, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa who have played this world cup. So, it won't be easy.
Re: Re: England beat India 3-2
by Sukhwinder Singh on Mar 06, 2010 10:29 PM
Last minute miss by Rajpal was really bad. Had he scored, India could have at least drawn the match against a team which is on top of the table.
Regarding disallowed goal, I don't think it was a goal. Ball didn't hit Shivendra's stick.
Re: Re: Re: England beat India 3-2
by S Shrikanth on Mar 06, 2010 10:37 PM
Yes. Rajpal's miss stunned me. It took away the chances to draw the match and finish among the elite 6. Now they will have to win against SA, not an easy task now, to stay at No. 4 to play for 7-8 positions.
Re: England beat India 3-2
by S Shrikanth on Mar 06, 2010 10:14 PM
Indian team is an inexperienced team and this was fully exposed today. But this is another issue as talent does not wait for experience. Boris Becker won Wimbledon at the age of 17 years beating stalwarts and defended it next year as well.
Low profile game of poors Hockey to high profile rich and elite game Cricket, the story is the same. They fail to perform in major tournaments.
Re: England beat India 3-2
by S Shrikanth on Mar 06, 2010 10:17 PM
I do not know why a goal scored by India was disallowed!
Indian team is an inexperienced team and this was fully exposed today. But this is another issue as talent does not wait for experience. Boris Becker won Wimbledon at the age of 17 years beating stalwarts and defended it next year as well.
Low profile game of poors Hockey to high profile rich and elite game Cricket, the story is the same. They fail to perform in major tournaments.
Hockey team has some more chances to mature. They have Asian games and Commonwealth games this year. In commonwealth games they will have Australia, England, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa who have played this world cup. So, it won't be easy.
Re: Re: England beat India 3-2
by slayer slayer on Mar 07, 2010 02:01 AM
HEY SHRIKANTH couldnt watch today's match...how was it? until i catch some highlights...most defintely india needs to win more matches but before that it needs to play more internationals !! 2-3 years ago who would have thought england would be beating us...all happening because they are playing more internationals than us
Re: Re: Re: England beat India 3-2
by Sukhwinder Singh on Mar 07, 2010 02:07 AM
Was closely fought match. India dominated the second half and missed 2 sure goals. Irony is India played better but silly mistakes cost them the match.
Re: Re: Re: SA Leading Pak 4-1
by Sukhwinder Singh on Mar 06, 2010 10:30 PM
Look at the time. This ritika had posted that wrong score even before the India - England match started.
Both teams played wonderful hockey and attacked each other very nicely. The World No. 2 and 3 teams played very class hockey. Being a holiday, I got a chance to see the entire match.
Australians were supreme as they scored 2 goals convincigly. It was a sweet revenge for Australians as Spain had beaten them 1.5 years back in Beijing Olympics Semi finals.
Re: How much Money does our Hockey Players Want ?
by Jay on Mar 06, 2010 07:51 PM
Well, so far those who are playing are doing the same not because of the money. If we have to match others we need a lot of structural changes. The fact is nobody in the powers is really having any interest or motivation to work on any game other than cricket. Each city in Netherlands has more astro-turfs than those in entire India. Forget other aspects. We have a huge work ahead if we have to win any game other than cricket.
Re: How much Money does our Hockey Players Want ?
by S Shrikanth on Mar 06, 2010 07:30 PM
They get Rs 10,000 in WC/Olympics/CT and 5000/- per match in other international matches. Since there are 6 matches in this WC, each player will get Rs 60,000 max.
In the whole year they play 30-40 International matches, so their maximum earning in a year may be 3,00,000 per year(EBT). Post tax deduction, they may get around 2,60,000 p.a. That means they max monthkly pay pocket would not be more than 21,000.
Cricket players, who are first round exiters in major championships, earn Rs 1.6 lacs to 2 lacs/match.
How much do you think Indian National Hockey players should be paid per match?
