When the Indian hockey team lifted the Sultan Azlan Shah Trophy in Ipoh after 14 years,only those present at the venue were lucky enough to watch the proceedings. There was no live telecast of the competition in India for the second year running. While ESPN had the television rights till 2007 and did not renew their contract with the organisers,ad-hoc committee sources said Doordarshan too had made no arrangements for the telecast. This,despite the fact that TV-3,a local Malaysian channel,had shown interest but demanded that production costs be borne by the Indian authorities. Even in 2003,DD Sports acquired telecast rights for the Asia Cup from Eurosport,a private broadcaster,only after India made it to the final. This time,there was no attempt made to telecast the event, committee sources said. This meant that viewers in India were left clueless and had to rely only on news agencies for results. Last year,Doordarshan had relayed the matches later,but this time there have been no arrangements. Given the economic downturn,the tournament organisers were struggling to attract sponsorship and were not in a position to make their own production arrangements.
