Voice of cricket

New Indian Express

01-06-2025

"NERVOUS," was how Pragyan Ojha put it. Manvinder Bisla had used that same word. The likes of Sarandeep Singh and Sourabh Kumar weren't too sure if they belonged when they were given gigs. These days, they are all key voices in the host broadcaster's attempt to make the Indian Premier League (IPL) more inclusive by adding commentary feeds in multiple regional languages including Bhojpuri, Kannada and Punjabi.
These commentators -- known as 'talent' -- have either played for the national team in a previous cricket innings or are well known as coaches. But while it gets them through the door, they are also subject to tests before JioStar, who have shelled out a pretty penny to broadcast the IPL, give them gigs.
Siddharth Sharma, the content lead (sports), narrates a story. "We just don't want to gloss over a glorious shot (although) that's one of doing it (commentary)," he tells this daily. But if we can engage at a deeper level and make this hero meaningful for you... take the example of (Vaibhav) Suryavanshi. One of his coaches is part of my Bhojpuri commentary. He comes from Samastipur. So, all of this, We have got stories that we should fulfil the fans regardless of where he joins us from. That's something we have worked on, to create that ecosystem and environment that tells the richest story. Some of them are consummate storytellers, some of them we work with."
To first see if they are natural storytellers, there's a video clip sent to them. Kumar, for example, was sent a video of the match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Chennai Super Kings, the game where RP Singh no-balled giving CSK the win.
Here's Kumar. "What do we say when the batter is not still? What do English or Hindi commentators say? We say this because we are professional coaches and we understand the game. But we say it like there are 2-3 people sitting at home and discussing the game... it's infotainment."
That infotainment is tangible because they have worked with their respective producers to come up with pop culture references and cultural nuances important to that region. "We don't want it to be another Hindi commentary," Sharma says. "The producers come from those regions, they can read and write (for example, a Kannada feed producer is literate in Kannada and so on). They have a background in pop culture."