With the IPL 2021 right around the corner, Star and Disney India, the official media rights holder and host broadcaster, announced an illustrious panel of 100 commentators for the marquee tournament.
The line-up includes an eclectic mix of Regional and English commentators, who will give viewers and fans an option to enjoy the games with live commentary in the language of their choice. The 14th season of the IPL will include some of the best cricketing minds across languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, and the newly added Marathi feed on Disney+ Hotstar.
On the announcement of the commentary panel, Sanjog Gupta, Head – Sports, Star and Disney India said: “IPL is back with its 14th season, and we are proud to announce names of the faces who will be part of our commentary panel for the megacast of nine concurrent live IPL feeds that we’re delivering. Our endeavour has been to reach fans across the country, engage with them in the language of their choice and deliver a culturally relevant experience. We have a rich pool of cricketing experts from across languages joining us this year to amplify the excitement of the match and engage fans.”
“We also believe that the commentary box is no longer restrained by physical boundaries. Today we have technology that allows experts from all over the world to log in, contribute to live commentary, and bring games to life. This has allowed us to put together arguably the best ever commentary panel for IPL despite restrictions in travel and movement imposed upon us due to the pandemic,” he added.
Select Dugout is back with detailed analytical commentary to create deeper fan engagement with an eminent panel of cricket legends. The Select Dugout panel for the IPL 2021 includes a decorated set of experts – Scott Styris, Brian Lara, Brett Lee, Graeme Swann, and Dominic Cork. Fans are in for a star-studded season with cricketing legends such as Shane Watson, Dale Steyn, Ross Taylor, Graeme Smith, Kevin Pietersen among a host of other experts who will join the feed.
Speaking about the new offering on the Select Dugout this year, Brian Lara said: “It feels good to be back in the Dugout once again with the best in the business. The brand-new season involves tonnes of the latest innovations in technology and broadcast to provide our viewers with an immersive experience and deliver on the proposition of ‘more game per game’. I am excited about the new format where different IPL legends will be interacting with us remotely during the game.”
Former cricketer, Gautam Gambhir, part of the Hindi commentary panel, said: “The popularity of commentary in Hindi has grown over the years and I’m glad to be back for another exciting season of IPL that brings the country together. Each year, as part of the Hindi commentary panel, we try to introduce new elements to keep fans engaged and add to their viewing experience and we will keep the momentum going in this edition too. Every team has its winning mantra and it will be interesting to see the teams battle it out this time for yet another entertaining tournament.”
List of commentators & presenters:
WORLD FEED: Matthew Hayden, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Slater, Danny Morrisson, Ian Bishop, Harsha Bhogle, Simon Doull, Mpumelelo Mbangwa, Daren Ganga, Sunil Gavaskar, Mark Nicholas, Ajit Agarkar, Nick Knight, Deep Dasgupta, Rohan Gavaskar, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Murli Kartik, Anjum Chopra, Lisa Sthalekar, Mel Jones and Alan Wilkins
DUGOUT: Scott Styris, Brett Lee, Dominic Cork, Brian Lara, Graeme Swann. Talent joining remotely for few matches as a guest: Kevin Pietersen, Shane Watson, Ross Taylor, Dale Steyn, Nasser Hussain
HINDI: Aakash Chopra, Nikhil Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, RP Singh, Deep Dasgupta, Sunil Gavaskar
TAMIL: Abhinav Mukund, Subramaniam Badrinath, Hemang Badani, Yo Mahesh, Sadagopan Ramesh, Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, Muthuraman R, K V Sathyanarayanan, RJ Balaji, Krishnamachari Srikanth, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Russel Arnold
KANNADA: Venkatesh Prasad, GK Anil Kumar, Akhil Balachandra, Srinivasa Murthy, Bharat Chipli, Vijay Bharadwaj, Vinay Kumar
TELUGU: Venugopal Rao, Ashish Reddy, MSK Prasad, Kaushik NC, Kalyan Krishna and Sashikant Avulapalli
BENGALI: Ranadeb Bose, Joydeep Mukherjee, Boria Majumdar, Sanjeeb Mukherjea, Saradindu Mukherjee, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Gautam Bhattacharya and Debashish Datta
MARATHI: Vinod Kambli, Sandeep Patil, Amol Muzumdar, Snehal Pradhan, Kunal Date, Prasanna Sant and Chaitanya Sant
MALAYALAM: Shiyas Mohammed, Vishnu Hariharan, CM Deepak, Sony Cheruvathur, Tinu Yohannan and Reiphi Gomez
PRESENTERS ACROSS FEEDS: Jatin Sapru, Neroli Meadows, Sanjana Ganesan, Tanya Purohit, Anant Tyagi, Suren Sundaram, Dheeraj Juneja, Bhavna Balakrishnan, Nashpreet Kaur, Anubhav Jain, Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, Muthuraman R, M Anand Srikrishna, Vindhya Medapatti, Neha Chowdry, Reena Dsouza, Kiran Srinivasa, Madhu Mailankody