PTV’s poor coverage of World XI hockey series

Ikram el Hak

Pakistan Television has served Pakistan sports in unprecedented manner. One can credit PTV with producing a whole slew of players for multiple sports through their bandbox broadcast of variety of sporting events. No one knew the ropes better than PTV when it came to popularising and glorifying sports and sportsmen. There are incalculable number of Pakistan players who would attribute their rise to the stardom to PTV’s telecast of certain games. For instance, Ghulam Abbas, who was declared Asian volleyball player of the year in 2004, said in interview that he watched SAF Games volleyball final match in 1989 between India and Pakistan on PTV which turned out to be a cliffhanger and Pakistan staged a phenomenal comeback to overpower India after going down 0-2 sets. That thrilling end to the game brought him such excitement that he decided to take to the volleyball court and ended up as ‘Pride of Pakistan.’