Ahead of the start of IPL 2021 on Friday, Star Sports, Official broadcasting partner of the IPL has announced a team of 100 commentators and presenters across the nine concurrent live feeds that will be aired from 9 April to 30 May.
Star India, the official broadcaster and global rights holder of the IPL bagged media rights for a massive amount of Rs 16,347.50 crores that will be valid for five years (2018-2022). The Indian broadcaster acquired TV and OTT (Audio, Video, and other media services via the internet) rights. Star has signed multiple contracts with broadcasters worldwide to showcase the 14th season of the IPL LIVE.
Star Sports has gone all out and roped in 17 brands and sponsors for this season. It’s also been reported that all co-sponsor deals are in the price range of Rs 110-125 crores, while associate deals lie in the lower range of Rs 65-70 crores.
The network will be broadcasting in 120 countries. In India, a total of eight live feeds in six languages will be streamed. Hindi, English, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu languages will be available on Hotstar and Star India’s broadcast channels.
Star has also bought back Select Dugout, which will feature a detailed analytical commentary. Former cricketers Scott Styris, Brian Lara, Brett Lee, Graeme Swann, and Dominic Cork will be part of the analytical panel. The likes of Shane Watson, Dale Steyn, Ross Taylor, Graeme Smith, Kevin Pietersen among a host of other experts will join the feed, the broadcasters said.
Sanjog Gupta, Head of Sports, Star & Disney said “We have a rich pool of cricketing experts from across languages joining us this year to amplify the excitement of the match and engage fans. We also believe that the commentary box is no longer restrained by physical boundaries. Today we have technology that allows experts from all over the world to log in, contribute to live commentary, and bring games to life. This has allowed us to put together arguably the best ever commentary panel for IPL despite restrictions in travel and movement imposed upon us due to the pandemic.”
List of Commentators, as announced by Star
World feed: Matthew Hayden, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Slater, Danny Morrisson, Ian Bishop, Harsha Bhogle, Simon Doull, Mpumelelo Mbangwa, Daren Ganga, Sunil Gavaskar, Mark Nicholas, Ajit Agarkar, Nick Knight, Deep Dasgupta, Rohan Gavaskar, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, Murli Kartik, Anjum Chopra, Lisa Sthalekar, Mel Jones, and Alan Wilkins
Presenters across feeds: Jatin Sapru, Neroli Meadows, Sanjana Ganesan, Tanya Purohit, Anant Tyagi, Suren Sundaram, Dheeraj Juneja, Bhavna Balakrishnan, Nashpreet Kaur, Anubhav Jain, Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, Muthuraman R, M Anand Srikrishna, Vindhya Medapatti, Neha Chowdry, Reena Dsouza, Kiran Srinivasa, Madhu Mailankody
Hindi: Aakash Chopra, Nikhil Chopra, Gautam Gambhir, Ajit Agarkar, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, RP Singh, Deep Dasgupta, Sunil Gavaskar
Tamil: Abhinav Mukund, Subramaniam Badrinath, Hemang Badani, Yo Mahesh, Sadagopan Ramesh, Radhakrishnan Sreenivasan, Muthuraman R, K V Sathyanarayanan, RJ Balaji, Krishnamachari Srikanth, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Russel Arnold
Kannada: Venkatesh Prasad, GK Anil Kumar, Akhil Balachandra, Srinivasa Murthy, Bharat Chipli, Vijay Bharadwaj, Vinay Kumar
Telugu: Venugopal Rao, Ashish Reddy, MSK Prasad, Kaushik NC, Kalyan Krishna and Sashikant Avulapalli
Bengali: Ranadeb Bose, Joydeep Mukherjee, Boria Majumdar, Sanjeeb Mukherjea, Saradindu Mukherjee, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Gautam Bhattacharya, and Debashish Datta
Marathi: Vinod Kambli, Sandeep Patil, Amol Muzumdar, Snehal Pradhan, Kunal Date, Prasanna Sant and Chaitanya Sant
Malayalam: Shiyas Mohammed, Vishnu Hariharan, CM Deepak, Sony Cheruvathur, Tinu Yohannan and Reiphi Gomez