IPL 2016: Harsha Bhogle will not be a part of the commentary team this season

The television viewers of the IPL 2016 will not get to hear the quintessential voice of Harsha Bhogle this season. The renowned commentator, who has been donning the commentator’s hat in the lucrative league for the last eight editions, will not be a part of the commentary team in this edition. It is reported that his contract has been terminated just a week back.

This is surely a surprising decision for one and all as Harsha was part of this season’s IPL draft auction too. He also featured in the league’s promotional videos and was in the commentators’ 51-day-long duty roster too. He even had his flight booked by the production house.

Though Sony Network holds IPL’s telecast rights, it is the BCCI that decides the tournament’s production. However, BCCI Secretary Anurag Thakur and IPL Chairman Rajeev Shukla didn’t want to comment on Harsha’s sudden eviction from the commentary box.

According to a report in the Indian Express, a senior BCCI official,on condition of anonymity said, ““When deciding the commentators, we take feedback from everyone. We monitor social media reactions on commentators, and also take inputs from players.”

The same report suggested that the other board members talked about an incident which took place in India’s opening ICC T20 World Cup 2016 game in Nagpur last month, where Harsha is reported to have had a heated exchange with a Vidharbha Cricket Association official. According to them, this incident might have propelled his sudden ouster.

No one told me anything

Harsha himself said that he was completely unaware of the reasons. “No one told me anything. I have not been formally told of the reason even now. All I have been told is ‘it is a BCCI management decision’,” said Bhogle, a revered voice in the cricket fraternity.

Indian commentators received a lot of flak during the T20 world cup. Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan asked the commentators to talk about Indian cricketers in his tweet after India’s thrilling one-run win against Bangladesh. He accused them of ignoring the efforts of the Indian cricketers. Indian skipper MS Dhoni retweeted Bachchan’s tweet to reignite the fuel.

T 2184 - With all due respects, it would be really worthy of an Indian commentator to speak more about our players than others all the time.

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) March 23, 2016

MS Dhoni retweeted it by saying:

Nothing to add https://t.co/8rBel3vw4o

— Mahendra Singh Dhoni (@msdhoni) March 23, 2016

However, Harsha defended the stances of the commentators in his facebook post and tried to justify his position. So it surely created an air of controversy. Harsha too was vocal about the incident in Nagpur where the Hindi and English commentary box was separated by the president’s enclosure. With the door of the VIP box shut, the bilingual commentators had to rush down several flights of stairs and climb up again, after every stint.

“Working on a tight deadline, because of running around, I was at times panting as I went on air. This was because of that shut door,” said Bhogle.

Board officials claimed that a fuming Harsha had an angry exchange of words with a cricket official there. The issue escalated and reached the ears of the BCCI President Mr. Shashank Manohar who is based in Nagpur. It might have just made Harsha lose his place in the IPL.