A lot of hard work goes into commentary: Madhavi Bandari
Since a very young age, Madhavi Bandari was busy pursuing her passion for kabaddi. She played for the state from 1986 to 1996 and participated in 18 national games.
It was Madhavi’s father who encouraged her to take up the sport. “Later, my husband, Madhusudhan Rao, was a pillar of support and now my kids push me to keep pursuing my passion,” says Madhavi.
A student of Wesley School at Tarnaka, Madhavi would train after school hours to improve her performance. Back then, Madhavi was a part of a kabaddi club, the Sri Krishna Club, where Balaram and Jagdishwar Yadav honed her skills and encouraged her.
The ace sportswoman later went on to do a diploma in sports coaching from the Sports Authority of India and was thereafter appointed to coach the state’s women’s team. And now, she is a commentator for one of the country’s most entertaining sports events.
“In the first season there was only Hindi and English commentary. The organisers wanted to reach out to a wider audience and decided to introduce regional languages as well. I had directly received a call from Star India asking me if I wanted to take up the role. They met me for about five minutes, recorded my voice and that’s how I got selected,” says Madhavi, who is currently pursuing her PhD in Sports Training from JNTU, while working as a physical education teacher at Zilla Parishad High School, Raghunathapuram.
Impressed by her work during the second season of the League, the makers have retained her since. “Before we got started, they groomed us by organising workshops. We get all the necessary statistics and the required information before the match, but despite that there is a lot of hard work that goes into it. You have to watch the match keenly and have to be spontaneous. We can’t divert our attention for even a split second,” she says.
Interestingly, Madhavi was also a commentator at the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup.
Kabaddi will be the next big thing: Radhika Reddy
Radhika Reddy took to kabaddi when she was studying in Class IX at Vidya Dayini Model High School. “My dad was a kabaddi player but could not take it up for a long time. He wanted me to take up kabaddi. I watched him play while I grew up. In fact, he would even conduct tournaments during Dasara to promote the sport,” Radhika recalls.
A member of Hyderabad’s women kabaddi team in her days, Radhika won a gold medal at the Bangalore National Games around two decades ago, a first win for the team.
Her husband Srinivas Reddy, also a kabaddi player, has been her biggest support, she believes. In fact, Srinivas is currently coaching the Haryana Steelers team of the Pro Kabbadi League.
Referring to the rise of the sport, Radhika says: “Back then, when I was playing kabaddi, the sport was not widely publicised. I was well known only in the kabbadi circuit. But now, as a commentator, a lot of people recognise and appreciate me.”
Talking about her stint as a commentator, Radhika says, “The organisers approached me during Season 3. We had a workshop and were trained well before starting. We also had the english commnetators to take cue from. It is a welcome move by Star India where they were open to women commentators.”
Like Madhavi, Radhika was also appointed as a commentator during the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup. Radhika, who currently runs a medical staffing firm, says that kabaddi will be the next big thing in our country! She says, “If the sport is introduced in Olympics, it would be the best thing for kabaddi. We have a lot of potential and the roots of the sports lies in India. And if you are good at the national level, the government also helps out with job opportunities. This time, at the Pro Kabaddi league auction, the bidding went up to Rs 93 lakh.”
