The beauty of diversity

We all know that India is one of the most diverse nations in the world with its myriad of languages and cuisines. But it is indeed wonderful to know that this diversity comes together so beautifully in that one unifying sport – cricket.

It all first started with Sony ESPN , which started with broadcasting IPL matches in Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telegu and Malayalam, over and above the regular English and Hindi. When IPL went to Star Sports in 2018, it built over its regional languages and today has World Cup commentary in 8 languages.

According to Star Sports, regional feeds are being watched by an incredible 194 million viewers for a total of 75 billion minutes.

What this means is that there is a huge population in India which wants to listen to cricket commentary in its own mother tongue. This is a huge opportunity for so many of those cricketers who made it till Ranji or played a test or two to then drift into oblivion; many come from Tier 2 cities of India and for them, English would be a barrier but with this new door opening up, surely it would be great to rope in some of these guys and get their insights too.