Special Report
Hindi becoming the language of sports commentary
MUMBAI: English was the language of cricket commentary when it started in India in the early 1940s on All India Radio. The listenership was limited to the English-speaking class. It was in the late 1950s that cricket commentary in Hindi made a beginning. Commentary in the language of the people took the game of cricket to the hinterlands.
The dominance of cricket commentary in Hindi continued till the mid-1980s. Live commentary of India winning the 1983 cricket world cup was heard by most cricket fans in India in Hindi.
For the older generation, the names of cricket commentators in Hindi such as Suresh Saraiya, Narottam Puri and Ravi Chaturvedi still bring back memories of the 1970s and early 1980s when words created action happening on the cricket field.
With the emergence of colour television began the decline of radio commentary and the rise of English commentators on television. The government-owned Doordarshan was the only television channel available in the 1980s.
The rise of private broadcasters in the 1990s again saw the rise of cricket commentary in English and then its dominance. The first decade of the new millennium did make sports broadcasters aware of the importance of commentary in Hindi but it took almost a decade for them to actually wake up to the full potential of Hindi.
The likes of Star Sports, Ten Sports, SET Max and Sony Six made a beeline to incorporate more and more Hindi language programming in their sports coverage to grow their viewership.
Only this year, India’s oldest sports channel, Star Sports, launched the country’s first 24×7 Hindi sports channel, Star Sports 3, following an exercise that involved rebranding as well as reorganisation.
“We changed the landscape of cricket broadcast in the country in 2012 with the launch of a world class Hindi commentary simulcast in addition to the existing English language feed,” says Star Sports business head Nitin Kukreja.
The Hindi language feed attracted immediate attention from viewers.
Star Sports says 71 per cent of the viewership for the dual language-feed India-Australia series came from Hindi commentary. Thereafter, Star Sports took the engagement with the Hindi audiences even further.
“We launched India’s first 24X7 Hindi sports channel, Star Sports 3, with content, graphics and shows in Hindi – a giant step forward to dramatically increase the reach of sports in the country,” says Kukreja.
Apart from the launch of Star Sports 3, 2013 also saw Star Sports channels providing Hindi commentary feed for the Indian Badminton League (IBL), Barclays Premier League (BPL) and Hockey India League (HIL).
Says Kukreja: “In a nation where less than 10 per cent of the population understands English, sports broadcasters have traditionally programmed only in one language – English. We want to change that. We want to focus on a language that the viewers understand.”
For Star Sports, ‘Hindi dedicated’ is not just about the commentary being available in Hindi. It is a comprehensive Hindi offering in terms of graphics, navigation tools and all such constituents.
To increase its viewer base, Star Sports will now show not just cricket in Hindi but a range of shows on other sports including hockey, badminton and football and special shows such as Star Power, Heroes, Masterclass and Hockey Hotshots.
Star Sports is not stopping at just Hindi. The channel is considering providing feeds in languages such as Tamil and Bengali very soon.
Ten Sports too has jumped onto the Hindi bandwagon. For the recently concluded India-South Africa series, it had Hindi commentary on Ten Sports and English on Ten Cricket and Ten HD.
“With the viewer becoming more and more demanding like any other nation, and rightfully so, there is a viewer base that is looking forward to Hindi commentary and then the usual English commentary feed,” reasons Ten Sports CEO Rajesh Sethi. And like Star Sports, Ten Sports too is looking at going multi-lingual in the future to expand its viewership.
Sony Entertainment Television provided commentary in both Hindi and English for its biggest sports asset, the Indian Premier League (IPL). While Set Max had commentary in English, the nearly two-year old Sony Six had commentary in Hindi for Pepsi IPL 2013.
“The Hindi feed was very well appreciated. We reached close to a 100 million viewers! The consumers were delighted to be provided with a choice of language preference,” says a Sony Six official. Sony plans to expand the number of IPL games with Hindi commentary.
Star Sports claims it has had higher core viewers coming from its Hindi feed than Engilsh. “During the period October-November 2013, about 24 million viewers were core to Hindi only, while English language had core viewership of about 9 million. Another 8.4 million viewers were core to both Hindi and English language,” reveals Kukreja.
On their part, advertisers are happy with the Hindi, English fragmentation of viewers. Madison Media COO Karthik Lakshminarayan says, “Currently, you buy a match, not a feed, so advertisers come on both feeds but soon, we will see that different advertisers will go for the two feeds (separately).”
The rates for Hindi feed are expected to be higher than the English feed given the much higher core viewership for the Indian language commentary. The segmentation could also attract advertisers who so far had shied away from sports channels.
Madison’s Lakshminarayanan says, “The more you can split an audience, the better it is for the advertiser. If you can further a demand with regional languages, then it should work.”
The Hindi channel being a new proposition, Star Sports isn’t yet selling its two language feeds separately. “Sometime in the future, we see value in unbundling the two offerings to different sets of clients. This will help the clients reach out more effectively to their target audience at one level and/or tailor their communication to suit specific sets of audiences,” says Star Sports’ Kukreja.
Sports programming in Hindi and other Indian languages can only help expand viewership for sports and will be beneficial to broadcasters as well as advertisers. The sports broadcasters will have their pockets deepened, the advertisers can reach more people and the viewers can watch programming in the language of their choice.
MUMBAI: Some friendships are made in heaven; others are coded in Mumbai. Hamara Vinayak, the first-ever digital original from Siddharth Kumar Tewary’s Swastik Stories, turns the divine into the delightful, serving up a story that’s equal parts start-up hustle and spiritual hustle.
Some tech start-ups chase unicorns. This one already has a god on board. Hamara Vinayak takes the leap from temple bells to notification pings and it does so with heart, humour and a healthy dose of the divine.
At its core, the show asks a simple but audacious question: what if God wasn’t up there, but right beside you, maybe even debugging your life over a cup of chai?
The show’s tagline, “God isn’t distant… He’s your closest friend” perfectly captures its quirky soul. Across its first two episodes, screened exclusively for media in Mumbai, the series proves that enlightenment can come with a good punchline.
The series follows a group of ambitious young entrepreneurs running a Mumbai-based tech start-up that lets people around the world book exclusive virtual poojas at India’s most revered shrines. But as their app grows, so do their ethical grey zones. Into this chaos walks Vinayak, played with soulful serenity and sly wit by the charming Namit Das, a young man whose calm smile hides something celestial.
He’s got the peaceful look of a saint but the wit of someone who could out-think your favourite stand-up comic. Around him spins a crew of dream-driven youngsters – Luv Vispute, Arnav Bhasin, Vaidehi Nair and Saloni Daini who run a Mumbai-based tech start-up offering devotees across the world the chance to book “exclusive” poojas at India’s most sacred shrines. It’s a business plan that blends belief and broadband – and, as the story unfolds, also tests the moral compass of its ambitious founders.
“The first time I read the script, I found the character very pretty,” Namit joked at the post-screening interaction. “It’s a beautiful thought that God isn’t distant, he’s your closest friend. And playing Vinayak, you feel that calm but also his cleverness. He’s the friend who makes you think.”
The reactions to the series ranged from smiles to sighs of wonder. Viewers were charmed by the show’s sincerity and sparkle, a quality that stems from its creator’s belief that faith can be funny without being frivolous.
Among the cast, Luv Vispute shines brightest, his comic timing adding sparkle to the show’s more reflective beats. But what keeps Hamara Vinayak engaging is the easy rhythm of its writing – one moment touching, the next teasing, always gently reminding us that spirituality doesn’t have to be solemn.
Luv spoke fondly of his long association with Swastik. “Since my first show was with Swastik, this feels like home,” he said. “Every project with them is positive, feel-good, and this one just had such a different vibe. I truly feel blessed.”
Saloni Daini, who brings infectious warmth to her role, added that she signed up the moment she heard the show was about “Bappa.”
“We shot during the Ganpati festival,” she recalled. “The energy on set was incredible festive, faithful, and full of laughter. It’s such a relatable story for our generation: chaos, friendship, love, kindness, and faith all mixed together.”
Vaidehi Nair and Arnav Bhasin complete the ensemble, each representing different shades of ambition and morality in the start-up’s journey. Their camaraderie is easy and believable, a testament to how much the cast connected off-screen as well.
This clever fusion of mythology and modernity plays to India’s two enduring loves, entertainment and faith. Mythology has long been the comfort zone of Indian storytellers, from the televised epics of the 1980s to the glossy remakes that still command prime-time TRPs. For decades, gods have been our most bankable heroes. But Hamara Vinayak tweaks the formula not by preaching, but by laughing with its characters, and sometimes, at their confusion about where divinity ends and data begins.
Creator Siddharth Kumar Tewary, long hailed as Indian television’s myth-maker for shows like Mahabharat, Radha Krishn and Porus, explained the show’s intent with characteristic clarity, “This is our first story where we are talking directly to the audience, not through a platform,” he said. “We wanted to connect young people with our culture to say that God isn’t someone you only worship; He’s your friend, walking beside you, even when you take the wrong path. The story may be simple, but the thought is big.”
That blend of philosophy and playfulness runs through the show. “We had to keep asking ourselves why we’re doing this,” Tewary added. “It’s tricky to make something positive and spiritual for the OTT audience, they’ve changed, they want nuance, not sermons. But when the purpose is clear, everything else aligns.”
For the creator of some of Indian TV’s most lavish spectacles, Hamara Vinayak marks a refreshing tonal shift. Here, Tewary trades celestial kingdoms for co-working spaces and cosmic battles for office banter. Yet his signature remains: an eye for allegory, a love for faith-infused storytelling, and an understanding that belief is most powerful when it feels personal.
Hamara Vinayak, after all, feels less like a sermon and more like a conversation over chai about what success means, what faith costs, and why even the gods might be rooting for a start-up’s Series A round.
As Namit Das reflected during the Q&A, “Life gives us many magical, divine moments we just forget to notice them. Sometimes even through a phone screen, you see something that redirects you. That’s a Vinayak moment.”
The series also mirrors a larger cultural pivot. As audiences migrate from television to OTT, myth-inspired tales are finding new form and flexibility online. The digital screen lets creators like Tewary reinvent the genre, giving ancient ideas a modern interface, without losing the emotional charge that’s made mythology India’s storytelling backbone for decades.
In a country where faith trends faster than any hashtag, Hamara Vinayak feels both familiar and refreshingly new, a comedy that’s blessed with heart, humour and just enough philosophy to keep the binge holy.
For a country where mythology remains the oldest streaming service, Tewary’s move from TV to OTT feels both natural and necessary. Indian storytellers have always turned to gods for drama, guidance and TRPs from Ramayan and Mahabharat on Doordarshan to glossy mytho-dramas on prime time. But digital platforms allow creators to remix reverence with realism, and in Hamara Vinayak, faith gets an interface upgrade.
The result is a show that feels like a warm chat with destiny, part comedy, part contemplation. And in an age of cynicism, that’s no small miracle.
As Tewary put it, smiling at his cast, “The message had to be positive. We just wanted to remind people that even in chaos, God hasn’t unfriended you.”
With 5 episodes planned, Hamara Vinayak promises to keep walking that fine line between laughter and light. It’s mythology with memes, devotion with dialogue, and a digital-age reminder that even the cloud has a silver lining or perhaps, a divine one.
If the first two episodes are any sign, the show doesn’t just bridge heaven and earth, it gives both a Wi-Fi connection.
