When a 14-year-old almost entered commentary box

Maldives: Had there not been some age criteria, a 14-year old "cricket enthusiast" could have become the world's youngest cricket commentator during the ongoing Australia-India Twenty20 series.  

It is the first time in its 80-year history, Cricket Australia (CA) is using its platforms to have cricket commentary in Hindi, a language other than English.

"To find the best Hindi speaking commentators from the local Indian Australian community, a national wide search called “Who wants to be a Hindi cricket commentator?” was launched by the Indian Link Media Group,” Pawan Luthra, the CEO, told this correspondent.

"The contest appeared on the cover page of Indian Link’s Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth editions, with an additional full page advertisement in each edition.”

"Three e-mail blasts (each to over 25,000 email subscribers) were undertaken, along with four live interviews and over 60 advertisement spots on Indian Link Radio and an extensive social media campaign,” he added.

"We received a number of high quality entries, one from as far as Gurgaon in India, another one from a 14-year-old cricket enthusiast. He could not be selected because the entry age was 18 years,” said Luthra.

Around 12 people were short-listed for the final audition.

"They were asked to watch a cricket video, one of the greatest finishes ever in cricket history and had to commentate the vision live to be judged via speaker phone by panellists. The finalists were judged on their clarity, command of language, technical knowledge and ability to convey atmosphere and ambiance,” he asserted.

The selected commentators are:

Sanjeev Dubey ( Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney)

Shriram Iyer (Adelaide and Melbourne)

Mukesh Maadan (Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney)

Gopal Ganwani (Melbourne)

Manish Raj ( Sydney)

Chitrang Trivedi (Sydney)