The Commentator Who Brings Emotion To Cricket

Brut India

He is one of cricket's most recognisable voices. As Harsha Bhogle turns 60 today, listen to his humble beginnings and how he deals with controversies.  Thanks to The Final Word Cricket Podcast for the footage.

Transcript

00:00The big advantage with starting young

00:01is you're allowed to make mistakes, you know?

00:03I cannot mount an India-centric telecast

00:05when it's going to Bangladesh and Pakistan and everywhere.

00:08Now, there was an under-19 game in Hyderabad.

00:10England versus, I don't know if it was England versus India

00:12or England versus South Zone,

00:14but one of my friends was actually playing

00:15and one of my schoolmates, I just passed out of school,

00:18was playing in that game.

00:20And my father turns around and tells me,

00:22if there's an under-19 game,

00:24shouldn't there be an under-19 commentator?

00:26How do you fight with that logic?

00:28Apart from the fact, of course,

00:29that in those days, if your father said something,

00:30you said, yes.

00:32So I changed two buses, three o'clock in the afternoon,

00:34it's blazing hot, I take one bus,

00:36go to the terminus, change another bus,

00:38go to All India Radio just before it shuts.

00:39So they said, no, you do an audition first.

00:42Why don't you do a bit on Yovani?

00:44But a year later, I was doing Ranji Trophy commentaries there

00:46and the big advantage with starting young

00:48is you're allowed to make mistakes, you know?

00:49Right.

00:50So you make mistakes at a time

00:51when the world is charitable to you.

00:53Because if you're starting at 30,

00:54you don't have time to make mistakes,

00:55you've got to go in straight.

00:57There's a difference between a biased commentary

01:00and an India-centric commentary.

01:02I was doing the World T20.

01:03Yep.

01:04The World T20 was going,

01:05the world feed was going all over the world.

01:07It was an India-Bangladesh game.

01:08So there were people in Bangladesh,

01:10just as passionate as us in India,

01:11listening into the telecast.

01:13I cannot mount an India-centric telecast

01:15when it's going to Bangladesh and Pakistan and everywhere.

01:17If I'm doing a Hindi telecast,

01:19it's only going to India,

01:20and we all do Hindi commentary as well.

01:21You can be India-centric,

01:22but at no point should you ever be allowed to be biased.

01:26So I try to explain to people

01:27that you have to present both points of view.

01:30You didn't play professional cricket,

01:32how could you possibly not?

01:32You still get that.

01:33Oh, I get that every day.

01:35I get that every day.

01:37But my role is different.

01:38And I realized early in life,

01:39I said, can I be the non-striker?

01:42When I used to play cricket for my university side,

01:44I found I was in partnerships

01:45where I was making 25, 30% of the runs,

01:47but I was in long partnerships.

01:49And I said, can I be the non-striker?

01:51It's a lovely thought that all of us can go through it,

01:53but it requires you to be very aware

01:56of what you cannot do,

01:57which is sometimes as important in life

01:58as knowing what you can do.

02:00And so it started to work well for me.

02:03But I think there must always be a caller and a summarizer,

02:06a storyteller and an expert.

02:08You can have the batting average of 55

02:09to tell people what should happen, what shouldn't happen.

02:12But hang on, what is the emotion of a guy

02:14who's walking out on his first test?

02:16His parents are in tears over there.

02:18He's waited 25 years for this moment,

02:20and he nicks the first ball.

02:22How is he feeling?

02:22Someone's got to be able to tell that story

02:24because the people in houses want to hear stories.

02:27That's what our game is about.

02:28It's about emotion.

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