Are penalty corners taking too long?

Prabhjot Singh writes from New Delhi

Hockey, though 102 years old in Olympics, is still evolving. Some changes, including video referral, have been necessitated not only because of advancement of technology but also to ensure fairness in the supervision and conduct of matches.

Video referrals though introduced in the last Champions Trophy Tournament in Melbourne last year; it is for the first time that this technological advancement is used for post-review of an event captured on the camera to help the third umpire to arrive at correct adjudication.

And this may have cost India dearly for Shivendra Singh got two-match suspension for his alleged assault on Fareed Ahmed of Pakistan. No one can defend an assault irrespective of the nationality or affiliation of payers concerned, both attacker and the receiver.

It did raise a debate whether Technical or Tournament Director can take cognisance of an offence that eluded the attention of two umpires supervising the play. Technical Director explained that it was well within his rights to ensure the fair play guidelines are strictly enforced and safety of player on the field guaranteed.

Earlier, there were no cameras and hence no video referrals. Cricket started it and hockey has followed. It is not long ago that the previous International Hockey Federation chief, Breda Els Vriesman had ruled out the possibility of introduction of third umpire or electronic umpire saying the FIH trusts its umpires and honours their judgement on the field.

This is not the first decision of the previous regime to be over ruled by the new set of office-bearers of the FIH. While Breda Els Vriesman wanted hockey to become a more spectacular sport, she wanted the Rules Board to amend rules so that disruptions in the game because of umpires’ interventions be minimised.

At one stage, it was argued that actual playing time in a 70-minute game of hockey was seldom more than 37-42 minutes. Breda Els Vriesman did succeed in reducing unnecessary interventions by umpires by making basic changes in the rules governing free hit, kicking the ball, turning, shielding or screening of opponent, etc., etc. Even offside rule was given a go by.

Breda Els Vriesman also wanted another major change in taking of penalty corners. She thought too much time was lost between award and taking of penalty corner. Players would run to sidelines to get instructions from the side benches.

This correspondent followed all matches on the fourth day yesterday. Interestingly, average time taken after award of a penalty corner and push from the goal line takes 50 seconds. In case there are successive awards of penalty corners, the second award would consume about 25 seconds.

The maximum taken yesterday was 67 seconds when Canada got its only penalty corner against Germany. Germans took 55 seconds to take their penalty corner.

When New Zealand got its first penalty corner against the Netherlands, it took 62 seconds to take it. The Netherlands took 50, 35, 53, 49 and 51 seconds in five penalty corners recorded by this correspondent.

In a couple of cases when the umpires took time out, that has been subtracted from the actual time taken in taking a penalty corner. For example, in one case, umpire had taken seven seconds to clear a foreign object from the eyes of a defender in the New Zealand-the Netherlands match.

In the Argentina-Korea match, the average was 49 seconds while in case of a successive award, it was 27 seconds. Imagine how much time may have been lost when Australians took 13 penalty corners in their opening game against England.

Time is mostly lost when the players go for safety gadgets, including face masks as well as abdominal guards. A game that is mandated to be played along the surface has, of late, been allowing more and more aerial play to become more spectacular. ??