The BCCI has done away with the practice of awarding annual/series contracts to cricketers-turned-commentators — Indian and overseas — and also professional commentators. It has now decided to engage them on a per-match-day-fee basis and series by series.
After Vivo-IPL-9, India is scheduled to play home internationals against Bangladesh (one-off Test in August), New Zealand (three Tests and five ODIs, October-November), England (five Tests, November-December), England (five ODIs, one Twenty20, January 2017) and Australia (four Tests, February-March 2017).
Recently-retired cricketers like Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan were the new faces offering expert comments in Hindi and English during the ICC World T20 and it’s possible that more cricketers with a fan following and the gift of the gab may get opportunities soon. The BCCI engages former first class cricketers for its domestic tournaments.
It’s the prerogative of the BCCI — which runs the in-house production department and supplies live feed of home international/domestic matches to Star Sports and the IPL matches to Sony Six for broadcast — to engage commentators. It is believed that IMG, which coordinates the production work, has informed commentator Harsha Bhogle that, at the directive of the BCCI, he is not being engaged for IPL-9 for any media role. Though there has been a lot of speculation as to the reasons for Bhogle not being considered, sources have revealed that he has had a telephonic talk with BCCI president Shashank Manohar.
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