Opinion: World Cup Television Protection – Is It The Greatest We Have Had?

By Mike Haymonds

The 15^th version of the FIH Males’s World Cup in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela has been judged as amongst the perfect for high quality and drama and an essential aspect in its undoubted success was the superb TV protection.

Regardless of meaning to view the matches selectively, I ended up watching all however two video games by way of the BT Sport protection.

My latest expertise of TV hockey protection had been of Professional League video games, additionally on BT Sport, and the World Cup protection got here throughout as a lot superior. Image high quality was good and the pace of the sport was actually captured. There have been plentiful replays of targets, penalty corners and dramatic and contentious conditions. The drama and pressure at shootouts was additionally rather well captured.

The 2 foremost commentators, Dan Unusual and Charlie Brougham, had been equally good with the proper steadiness in description of the play, background information and chat. Cedric D’Souza took over commentary for a number of video games however I felt his efficiency suffered by him speaking an excessive amount of and never letting the photographs inform the story.

To me, D’Souza was extra snug within the position of pundit which he shared principally with the legendary Ric Charlesworth, each performing in a different way. D’Souza was most likely extra incisive in his evaluation of the play and its potential penalties whereas Charlesworth’s heat educated fashion – with a tinge of humour – was engaging.

There have been some important enhancements over the standard Professional League protection. In-play on-screen knowledge – possession, photographs on purpose, circle penetrations – was useful and a brand new graphics characteristic confirmed groups’ path of play.

VAR conditions, which had been solely not often protracted, had been comprehensible with dialog between umpires and video umpires clearly heard, though there was the occasional language drawback.

The characteristic which most bugged me was the very temporary interviews with coaches instantly earlier than the sport and at half time and with gamers after the sport. Till the semi-finals and remaining, nothing of worth was mentioned. For the coaches it was clearly a chore as they only wished to get on with their job and from the gamers we solely heard the predictable clichés.

Regrettably, the very finish of the match suffered one thing of a catastrophe when the protection of the presentation ceremony, which was operating late after the shootout within the remaining, got here to an early abrupt finish when, with no warning, we converted to a wrestling programme.

Total, my verdict was of a really pleasant expertise. Hopefully the enhancements we noticed over the Professional League might be carried over to the TV protection of that competitors when it restarts this month.