Sport Watch
By Quazi Zulquarnain Islam
It is not often that I sit and stare at the computer with a blank spaced out look during the making of SportsWatch. So with the deadline looming, this week's SportWatch looked in danger of missing out. Or so I thought…
It was about the time when I was on my second glass of RC Cola; coffee is really not my cup of tea; that I finally hit upon the object of this week's affection i.e, our (Bangladeshi's or people in the broader picture) penchant for playing sports and the attitude with which we pursue it.
In the course of the month of February, there was a period of two weeks that I had had off work. During this time yours truly engaged himself in a variety of activities. Without going into mundane details describing my day, what I should say is the fact that one of the pastimes mentioned was a football tournament held in the Abahani field.
I had gone to meet up with some friends and seeing a football match in progress under the brilliant February sunshine I could hardly resist myself. So it was within a very short time that I found myself sitting in the galleries; bottle of RC in hand and watching a match in progress between a team in white and another in a mixture of yellow and black.
Life is a relative thing and thankfully we judge it accordingly. So in the interest of preserving Einstein's theory all I shall say was that the match was a sordid but intensely competitive affair where the multi-coloured team pulled out many a cheeky move most of which were ably dealt with by the team in white.
So full time and it ended a provisionally fair 0-0. While the multi-coloured team were clearly on top, to be honest the team in white never really looked like conceding. The creative talents of the Team MC (multi-colour) decided to push forward with intent in the opening stages of first half of the silver goal half time. On and one they probed down the left, right and center.
It was during one of these collective forays forward that the a defender of Team White, booted the ball far upfield. Following ahead of the ball all that could be seen was two wary defenders fighting the judge the flight of the ball and one forward intent in reaching it.
The goalkeeper also advanced trying to catch the ball before it created too much trouble. As things panned out however the ball dropped right infront of the unfortunate goalie and bounced over him. The panicked defender under pressure from the onrushing forward proceeded to head the ball into his own net.
The referee blew his whistle and Goal! 1-0 to Team White! Or so we thought!
That was when scenes of pandemonium broke out with players, referees and a linesman who was too busy looking at the sights and sounds around him, all involved in the melee which ensued as soon as some of the forwards of Team MC (who were about 30 yards from the incident) screamed foul.
Without going into details of what followed, the referee under pressure (it seemed) from Team MC decided to revoke the goal and was afflicted with a seemingly acute case of selective amnesia saying that he had conveniently forgotten whether he had blown the whistle or not.
The linesman imparted his views on the matter with the sagacious comment of “ it's a goal but there was a foul in the buildup.”
And finally Team White took matters into their own hands ala our local teams and decided that they would not play on if the goal was not awarded.
And that was that.
Fairly on unfairly, Team MC was awarded a walkover and Team White went home grimly assured of their own innocence from members of the crowd and other participating teams.
As for yours truly, an entertaining morning ended though the entertainment was not about the football on show but what followed hereafter.
Which is the whole point of this lengthy narration.
What is the moral of the story?
I will leave you to come up with that! What say?
And mail me your views on this issue and more. You know the drill
( zulquarnain.islam@gmail.com )
