There’s excitement in the air as the batting team needs a six off the last ball to win. The batsman, drenched in sweat, takes his time to take guard and slogs at the ball. It bounces just a few metres before the boundary rope and the hitter looks to the skies in despair. The fielding team rejoices.
At the studio, three experts are discussing this with equal excitement and sharing their insights on television. What’s new, you might ask. Well, they’re speaking in Tamil.
Commentary in the local language is back with a bang in the last couple of months; while the recent World Cup saw a bunch of experts discussing the on-field happenings in local parlance, the currently-in-progress IPL isn’t far behind.
For the cricketing extravaganza, Sony has launched a separate channel, Sony Kix, which has commentary in Tamil. As Prasana Krishnan, business head, says, “Tamil Nadu stands out as one of the prime markets in the region that has shown great interest in the League over the years. Citing this, we have launched the Tamil feed to provide audiences with an enhanced viewing experience of the biggest cricketing spectacle on earth.”
The panel of experts have interesting names — it includes former players V.B. Chandrasekhar, Hemang Badani and Sadagopan Ramesh. For Badani, former middle-order batsman, commentary in Tamil comes naturally, from playing in the Chennai circuit for a long time. “During my playing days here, we always spoke in Tamil — be it on or off the field. That comes in handy for commentary. I’d describe my style as casual; I don’t preach.”
His insight comes not just from watching the game, but also from actually sweating it out for Team India on the field. “If I see a dropped catch on the field, I don’t say just that… I try to explain why the fielder might have missed it. That comes from years of playing the sport — when we’ve been in similar situations, we know how it works.”
Commentary in Tamil is seeing a revival of sorts; old-timers still recall the days when AIR broadcast updates. Ramamurthy Pattabhiraman has grown up listening to that and is now trying to make a mark in the commentary box by airing his views on the matches. The need for Tamil commentary of late has grown, he says, due to the influx of smaller-town players in the various franchises. “Just as times are changing, so are the profiles of cricketers. If in the 80s the cricket-watching generation grew up on a diet of players who mostly hailed from cities, the current crop is mostly from smaller towns,” he says. “The audiences in towns and villages look up to their brand of cricket and would like to understand, in the local language, about their game and style of playing.”
The response from cricket lovers in Tamil Nadu has been particularly good for this initiative. “They like it because we try to make it like a ‘potti kada’ chat,” feels Badani.
Adds Pattabhiraman, “For cricket lovers like me, commentating is just an extension of what we have been debating for years at street corners and in front of television sets. I treat it as an engaging conversation between friends.”
But that doesn’t mean that it’s just all play and no practice. Seasoned cricket commentator Nanee Sathyanarayanan, who was part of the Tamil commentary team during the World Cup on Star Vijay, says that practice began many months before the cricket spectacle commenced. “We had a voice expert training us on diction and delivery,” he reveals. “The team had a few days of dry-runs too. We try to focus on giving as much information on the game as possible.” The feedback has been overwhelming, says the commentator who is now busy with the IPL. “Many people told me that they just saw the score and the result of the match. Now, with commentary in a language familiar to them, they are actually watching the match.”
