2 overseas cricketers who will work as Hindi commentators in IPL 2023
IPL 2023 will start this Friday (March 31) with a clash between the Gujarat Titans and the Chennai Super Kings. Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium will host the IPL 2023 season opener.
The upcoming IPL season will start a new era in the tournament's history. For the first time since 2018, there will be two different broadcasters for IPL matches in India. Star Sports network owns the rights to telecast the matches on cable TV, while Jio Cinema has bagged the rights to stream the games live on its platform.
To attract new audiences to the platform, Jio Cinema has announced that all matches of IPL 2023 will be available for free. On top of that, the new broadcaster has also announced commentary teams for more than five languages, with several local languages added to the list.
Hindi commentary for IPL matches is quite popular in India. The likes of Aakash Chopra, Virender Sehwag, Ashish Nehra, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Kapil Dev, Arun Lal, Irfan Pathan, Jatin Sapru and several others have entertained fans with their Hindi commentary skills.
A majority of the commentators on the Hindi panel are Indians. However, this year, with two separate teams being formed by the two broadcasters, they also had to hire some overseas names to stack up their commentary panel. We look at two foreigners who will work as Hindi commentators in IPL 2023.
#1 Imran Tahir is a Hindi commentator for Star Sports in IPL 2023
South African cricketer Imran Tahir has represented multiple IPL franchises in the past. Tahir started his career with Delhi Daredevils before moving to Rising Pune Supergiant and Chennai Super Kings. He was quite successful during his stint with CSK as he won two trophies and bagged the Purple Cap award once as well.
Tahir is not a part of any IPL squad for the upcoming season. He has joined the Star Sports commentary panel as a Hindi commentator for IPL 2023. Fans should note that Tahir was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He worked as a Hindi commentator for Star Sports during the India vs. South Africa series in 2021/22.
#2 Owais Shah is a Hindi commentator for Jio Cinema in IPL 2023
Former England cricketer Owais Shah has joined the Jio Cinema commentary team as a Hindi commentator. Shah represented England in international cricket from 2001 to 2009. He was a middle-order batter, who could also bowl right-arm off-break.
Like Imran Tahir, Owais Shah was born in Pakistan. He has been a part of four IPL franchises, namely Delhi Daredevils, Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan Royals and Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Owais Shah never won an IPL trophy but played some fantastic knocks for his franchises.
It will be interesting to see how Owais Shah performs in his new role in this year's IPL tournament.