2) Sanjay Majrekar
Then it was 2013, Sanjay Manjrekar was snubbed from the commentary panel for the India-Australia series, though he had a contract with the official broadcaster. The reason cited by BCCI was, Manjrekar allegedly criticising board president N. Srinivasan and IPL CEO Sundar Raman during a webcast.
3. Danny Morrison
The same year, former New Zealand cricketer Danny Morrison and South African HD Ackerman were fired from IPL commentary as they introduced Virat Kohli as India’s captain-in-waiting, at a time when questions were repeatedly being raised over MS Dhoni’s leadership quality.
4) Ian Chappell
In 2013, famous Australian commentator and former Test captain Ian Chappell refused commentary job for the India-Australia series after his contract did not even gave him the permission to talk about team selection, DRS or administrative matters.
The strange restrictions given to the commentators has somewhat led to a dangerous trend emerging, one which gives no such place for objectivity in modern cricket commentary.
Take IPL season 6 for instance, when the whole cricketing world was shocked by the spot-fixing scandal, both the IPL commentary and studio team did not even mention the ‘F’ word once in the entire duration of the competition, mysteriously avoided any kind of discussion on the most pressing issue in world cricket at that time.
Harsha Bhogle himself has been accused of turning a blind eye over controversial yet important aspects in Indian cricket. During last year’s World Cup his interview with Srinivasan, the chairman of ICC at the time, was the exact example of commentators adopting the head in the sand approach; where not a single question was thrown over Srinivasan’s removal as the BCCI chief on charges of conflict of interest or the Big-3 engulfing the ICC under his leadership.
The BCCI is and always has been very allergic to criticism, across successive dispensations. The board has used the ‘control’ enshrined in its name to swept away anyone who has dared to question BCCI’s functioning.
In times such as these conflicting moments, do cricket fans really miss a particular commentator on TV? After all, whoever has the mike in his hand, the remote control simply lies in the hands of the mighty BCCI.
And if, a hard-working, honest, good-natured professional becomes a victim of road kill, well, what of that? It is our world; 15 minutes of glittering fame, five minutes of outrage and then!!! Nothing official about it…