Hawkeye leaves hockey decisions out of focus

New Delhi: While providing fascinating hockey, the Hero Honda World Cup in Delhi will be remembered for one more thing — the use of the video referral system. It is something that has been used by cricket for several years now. Tennis too jumped on the bandwagon when it allowed players to challenge the chair umpire's call via Hawkeye. Hockey's experience with it though has been mixed so far.

It's an experiment that the International Hockey Federation (FIH) began last year and decided to continue with for the world cup. And while it's been successful to a large extent in overturning some wrong decisions, large grey areas have emerged about how and when these referrals can be called for.

The biggest controversy that was created was when India scored one of the most magical team goals of the tournament so far, only for South Africa to successfully appeal for a penalty corner at the other end, before India's attack had commenced. To add insult to injury, South Africa scored to go ahead 3-2, much to the bemusement of the crowd as well as the Indian players.

The time taken for that referral was well over 45 seconds, something even the FIH concedes was not an ideal advertisement, either for the referral system or for the game of hockey itself. After the tournament, there will be an extensive review where these issues will be examined and fine-tuned for use in the future.

Naturally, for something which is in its initial stages, there are both backers and critics of the system. Australian coach Ric Charlesworth has been very vocal in his displeasure of the system as it stands, believing it cost his team points in the match against England. "For any system to work, the people at the centre of it need to know the rules,'' he thunders. "That was certainly not the case when we played England. That could have cost us the World Cup.''

Correct judgement

Germany's Marcus Weise though is a firm believer in the concept. "With so many players inside the circle and the pace at which the game is played, its impossible for two umpires to make the correct judgement every time. That's not a reflection on the umpires, it's a simple statement of fact.

‘‘If you look at the referrals that have been made here, more than 80 per cent have been upheld, which means a lot of incorrect decisions have been rectified. In my book, that's never a bad thing,'' he says. Indian coach Jose Brasa too believes the concept itself is good, but that it needs to iron out several flaws before it becomes foolproof.

When you consider that cricket still struggles with controversies regarding video umpire decisions and even the likes of Roger Federer have voiced their suspicions about the accuracy of Hawkeye in tennis, it was clear from the outset that there would be problems when hockey took on this challenge. To its credit, it has done so despite the fact that it has a fraction of the financial resources of either cricket or tennis.