Friday, March 29, 2024
 
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Pakistan’s Hockey Hocus Pocus



By Farooq Ganderbali



They come to play in an international hockey tournament after a businessman in their country pays for their travel expenses; their spirits are drooping because their federation is in disarray. In an initial match of the tournament they lose to their ‘arch rival’. Hell and damnation! All this while they play before an Indian audience whose applauses by their own admission took them by surprise.



But if it hinted at any kind of bonhomie it was too good to last longer. Comes a crucial semi final match against the same ‘arch rival’ that is to test their playing skills but the handicap is overcome by jingoist, religion-inspired fervour which takes them past their opponent, the hosts of the Champions Hockey tournament in Bhubaneshwar in Odisha. Ecstasy! Mind you it was not the final match. Never mind the ‘enemy’ had been quashed and that is all that matters for the Pakistanis.



And what better way to express the supreme delight than to do strip, show lewd gestures and shower choicest four letter words at both the spectators and the media for not being sporting enough to cheer the visitors all the way. It was a dance a la Pakistan. Pakistan’s ‘sporting spirit’ was on full display as was its weird notions of decency and civilized conduct.




One player thrust his pelvis forward in an obscene gesture that presumably is common at Pakistani sporting venue but, unfortunately for them, not anywhere else. Abusing the crowd and the media in a foreign, albeit, an ‘enemy’ country is a Pakistani derring-do that the faint hearted will not be able to perform.

What happens after the Pakistani burlesque on a hockey field ends? Expression of regret or remorse? That is not a Pakistani tradition where they are taught to be at their ‘aggressive’ best when confronting the ‘enemy’. So, the team’s coach and the captain first scoff at the idea of saying sorry but later do come out with an apology of sorts with the proviso that the matter be buried at once.




By this time the whole of the ‘enemy’ country was in rage at the inopportune vulgar display by the Pakistanis. Indian hockey officials were aghast that the International Hockey Federation (IHF) did nothing beyond speak a few words of disapproval at the conduct of the Pakistani team in the stadium.



For a far, far lesser ‘crime’ an Indian female boxer was punished with a suspension that would prematurely terminate her career. Her fault? By all accounts she was the victim of a poor, if not biased, umpiring and had refused to accept her bronze medal at the recent Asian Games.


The Indian hockey officials for once did manage to get the better of the international hockey organization. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) had all these years thought nothing of changing hockey rules the way the Europeans wanted; it was goodbye to the ‘Asian’ style of playing hockey. Now the FIH was told that unless the offending Pakistanis were punished India would not host any of its international events. Bilateral hockey ties with Pakistan were to be put on hold. Well, threat worked as a huge loss stared at FIH face.




And the FIH did a quick U-turn and two Pak players were suspended for one match and the third one was let off with a reprimand. This was hardly a befitting punishment. But India’s hockey organization obviously is not as powerful as its cricket administration which in a similar situation would have hoped to get a more appropriate response to its complaint.




In the meanwhile, the Pakistanis were up to their antics. After refusing to accept that their hockey players’ conduct was unacceptable, they claimed they had done nothing objectionable. Then they relented a bit to avert harm to their hockey setup and offered a token apology even as their coach put all the blame on the Indians—the spectators, the players and the media.



This is a standard Pakistani practice whenever they are caught with their pants down. Whenever a Pakistani team loses to India it is always because of extraneous reasons like bad umpiring, never because India played better. Remember, many Pakistanis in ‘responsible’ positions, not just the Hafiz Sayeed types, routinely blame India for terrorism and all ills in their country. Yet their government talks of ‘peace’ with India!




The Pakistanis were pathetic in their defence. According to their hockey officials, what their players did in the Bhubaneshwar semi- final match was in response to what the Indian players had done after defeating Pakistan in the Asian Games final. Never mind that the Asian Games were concluded in October and the Bhubneshwar match had taken place two months later in December.




Anyone familiar with Pakistani officialdom and who has watched the conduct of Pakistani players and spectators towards India would find it hard to believe that their hockey players quietly and meekly accepted an alleged boorish behaviour by Indians in South Korea during the Asian Games where, incidentally, the media reports had spoken of the Pakistanis outnumbering Indians in the spectator stands.



The coup de grace was delivered by the same Pakistani coach Shahnaz Sheikh who said after facing a storm in India over his players’ boorishness that the incident should be forgotten and India and Pakistan should play against each other frequently for the sake of hockey in the sub-continent. What was the man talking about? The ‘sub-continent’ style of hockey has long been buried.





More instructive of the Pakistani mindset was the reaction in the country’s media. Even when sadly coming to the conclusion that the Pakistani players had indeed exceeded the limits of decency at Bhubaneshwar, an article in Dawn justified the players conduct describing the Indian spectators as ‘unruly’ that required a ‘fitting’ response.



An editorial in the same paper took due note of ‘hostile Indian crowd’ and ‘media aggression’. It rued the action taken against the two Pakistani hockey players who were banned from playing the finals. That, according to the editorial, became a major factor in the loss of the Pakistani team to Germany in the final match.




The News International and the Express Tribune, both from Karachi, took more or less the same line. The News accused the FIH of succumbing to Indian pressure to suspended two Pakistani players though the daily noted that the Pak players should have shown better sportsmanship by celebrating in a more gracious manner.


The Express Tribune conceded that Pakistan players went overboard with their post-match celebrations, and yet remarked: “What was clearly an over-reaction, the hosts India went overboard with their protests, even threatening breaking hockey ties with Pakistan”. Amen!





(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)


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