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Commentary is an essential part of cricket broadcasting. Hence, it’s not a surprise that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) put a lot of emphasis on commentary, both during international matches and in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The upcoming edition of the IPL is also going to witness a number of commentators in different regional languages.
Since the first match of the IPL that took place back in 2008 between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), the level of commentary has grown. Back in 2015, the BCCI introduced female commentary and the same has added a different flavour and dimension to commentary.
Commentary adds spice to a match situation and the art isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. The personnel in charge of the microphone are responsible for describing the happenings of a match in a manner that the audience watching the match on their television sets don’t get bored at any stage.
The IPL 2023 commentators have to make sure that they are factually correct and also don’t go overboard with their words. They also have to be unbiased in their comments and stay neutral. A few commentators have been a recipient of criticism for their biased commentary. But overall, the IPL hasn’t disappointed one bit in that aspect and expectations are high even from the next edition.
The action starts on Friday, March 31 with the match between defending champions Gujarat Giants and the four-time champions Chennai Super Kings. The match will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad where the IPL final last season between the Giants and Sanju Samson’s Rajasthan Royals also took place.
English Commentators for IPL 2023
The English IPL commentary 2023 panel has some of the best in the business. Sunil Gavaskar has commentated in a plethora of matches in top level cricket. Recently, he lent his voice in the four-match Test series of the Border Gavaskar Trophy that India won after beating Australia 2-1.
Matthew Hayden, who commentated along with Gavaskar in the Test series, will also be present. Aaron Finch recently retired from international cricket and captained World Giants in the Legends League Cricket in Doha, Qatar, is set to show his commentary sixes.
Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers are legends of the IPL and made a name for themselves mostly while playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Both of them aren’t a part of the IPL teams anymore, but they are still a part of the cash-rich T20 league as they will be working as IPL English commentators 2023.
Danny Morrison has commentated in the IPL and also worked in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and many other popular tournaments around the world. He is a part of the IPL 2023 commentary panel. Eoin Morgan announced his retirement from international cricket after England’s bilateral series against Netherlands last year.
The veteran called it a day from all forms of cricket earlier this year. Morgan, who led the Knight Riders (KKR) to the IPL 2021 final against MS Dhoni’s Super Kings, will be seen playing the role of a commentator. Graeme Swann has commentated in a number of seasons. The commentary panel also has the legendary Jacques Kallis, who is deemed as one of the greatest all-rounders to have graced the game.
David Hussey was a part of the IPL in a playing capacity after which he joined the KKR coaching panel. The former all-rounder will now be seen donning the commentator’s hat. The likes of Kevin Pietersen, Tom Moody, Paul Collingwood and a few other renowned names are also a part of the commentary panel.
Here’s the list of English commentators in IPL 2023
Sunil Gavaskar, Jacques Kallis, Matthew Hayden, Kevin Pietersen, Aaron Finch, Tom Moody, Paul Collingwood, Daniel Vettori, Daniel Morrison, David Hussey, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers, Eoin Morgan, Brett Lee, Graeme Swann, Graeme Smith, Scott Styris, Sanjana Ganesan, Supriya Singh, Suhail Chandok
Hindi Commentators for IPL 2023
The Hindi commentary panel for IPL 2023 isn’t weak by any means. Mithali Raj decided to retire from cricket after the Women’s World Cup last year where India failed to advance to the semis. Recently, she also worked as the mentor of the Gujarat Giants in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), which was won by Harmanpreet Kaur’s Mumbai Indians (MI) after beating Meg Lanning’s Delhi Capitals (DC) in the final.
Suresh Raina, who played a number of match-winning knocks for the Super Kings since IPL 2008, is a part of the commentary panel. The southpaw recently played for the Indore Knights in the Legends Cricket Trophy, which took place at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Ghaziabad. Rana also got a top score of 90 in his team’s first match and it showed that he hasn’t run out of gas as a cricketer.
Imran Tahir is still an active cricketer as he recently played in the 2023 edition of the PSL. The veteran, who turned 44 years old, a few days ago, will now be commentating in the IPL. He used to play for the Super Kings and tasted a significant amount of success.
Sanjay Manjrekar needs no introduction as he has been commentating around the world for over two decades. He has had his fair share of controversies, but remains as one of the most prolific voices in the history of Indian commentary. Manjrekar has commentated in the IPL as well and is going strong in his profession.
Robin Uthappa, who helped the Knight Riders win their second IPL title in 2014, is a part of the commentary panel as well. The likes of Anil Kumble, Parthiv Patel, Pragyan Ojha, Zaheer Khan, Deep Dasgupta, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag and many others will be seen commentating in Hindi in the upcoming edition of the IPL.
Here’s the list of IPL hindi commentators 2023
Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Mithali Raj, Mohd Kaif, Sanjay Manjrekar, Imran Tahir, Deep Dasgupta, Ajay Mehra, Padamjeet Sehrawat, Jatin Sapru, Owais Shah, Zaheer Khan, Suresh Raina, Anil Kumble, Robin Uthappa, Parthiv Patel, RP Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Aakash Chopra, Nikhil Chopra, Saba Karim, Anant Tyagi, Ridhima Pathak, Surbhi Vaid, Glen Saldhana
Regional Commentators for IPL 2023
The commentators across a number of regional languages also come with a lot of experience. Marathi commentator Amol Muzumdar once used to be the leading run-scorer in India’s first-class cricket before being displaced from the top by Wasim Jaffer.
Kedar Jadhav, who started his IPL career with the Delhi team and went on to play for the Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), is also a part of the commentary panel. Another former Indian cricketer, Snehal Pradhan, will also lend her voice to the Marathi commentary panel.
S Badrinath, Laxmipathy Balaji and Murali Vijay are the former IPL cricketers, who are now a part of the Tamil commentary panel. India’s former fielding coach R Sridhar will also ply his trade. Baba Aparajith and Baba Indrajith, who are current cricketers, are a part of the commentary team in the IPL 2023.
Former head of Team India’s selection committee, MSK Prasad, will be seen in the IPL with the microphone in hand while commentating in Telugu. Hanuma Vihari started his IPL career with the Sunrisers after which he played for Delhi Capitals in 2019. But since then, he has fallen out of favour, but he is set to commentate in IPL 2023.
Ashoke Dinda, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Saurashish Lahiri and Shreevats Goswami are former Bengal cricketers. They are a part of the Bengali commentary panel in the IPL. Dinda also got to play for India in the early 2010s before losing his place from the national team. Tinu Yohanan and Raiphi Gomez are former cricketers and will be commentating in the IPL.
VRV Singh, Sarandeep Singh and Reetinder Singh Sodhi had the privilege of playing for India. They will now be working as commentators in the Punjabi commentary panel. Sandeep Patil was a part of the 1983 World Cup-winning team, captained by Kapil Dev. He is there in the panel for Marathi commentary.
Manpreet Juneja is a part of the gujarati commentary in ipl 2023. Debashish Mohanty and Venkatesh Prasad are also a part of the commentary team. Other big names like Venugopal Rao, Venkatapathy Raju, Gautam Bhattacharya, Akshath Reddy, DB Ravi Teja will also be there in their respective regional language’s commentary panel.
Here’s the list of regional commentators in IPL 2023
Marathi: Amol Muzumdar, Kunal Date, Prasanna Sant, Chaitanya Sant, Snehal Pradhan, Sandeep Patil. Kedar Jadhav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Kiran More, Siddesh Lad, Prasanna Sant, Chaitanya Sant, Kunal Date, Vikat Patil, Poorvi Bhave
Tamil: K Srikkanth, S Badrinath, Laxmipathy Balaji, S Ramesh, Murali Vijay, Abhinav Mukund, R Sridhar, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Baba Aprajith, Baba Indrajith, Anirudha Srikanth, KB Arun Karthik, Sudhir Srinivasan, Bagawati Prasad, Sanjay Paul, Sreenivasan Radhakrishnan, Sameena Anwar, Gayathri Suresh
Telugu: Venugopal Rao, Ashish Reddy, MSK Prasad, Kalyan Krishna, and T Suman, Hanuma Vihari, Venkatapathy Raju, Akshath Reddy, DB Ravi Teja, Sandeep Bavanaka, Kalyan Kollarapu, RJ Hemanth, Jyothi Ramana, Pratyusha, Gnaneswari
Bengali: Ashoke Dinda, Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Saradindu Mukherjee, Gautam Bhattacharya, Joydeep Mukherjee, Debasish Datta. Jhulan Goswami, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Saurashish Lahiri, Subhomoy Das, Shreevats Goswami, Saradindu Mukherjee, Anindya Sengupta, Shaheb
Malayalam: Tinu Yohanan, Vishnu Hariharan, Shiyas Mohammed, Raiphi Gomez, C M Deepak.
Punjabi: Sarandeep Singh, Rahul Sharma, VRV Singh, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Sunil Taneja, Atul Wassan, Gurjeet Singh, Palak Sharma
Malayalam: Sachin Baby, Rohan Prem, Sony Cheruvathur, VA Jagadeesh, Mohd Rafiq, Aju John Thomas, Renu Joseph, Sithara, Binoy
Oriya: Debashish Mohanty, Basanta Mohanty, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Biplab Samantray, Gourab Panda, Loriya Mohanty, Shovna Mishra
Bhojpuri: Mohd Saif, Shivam Singh, Satya Prakash, Gulam Hussain, Saurabh Verma, Kunal Aditya Singh, Vishal Aditya Singh, Sneh Upadhyay, Dimpal Singh
Gujarati: Manpreet Juneja, Vrijesh Hirjee, Rakesh Patel, Bhargav Bhatt, Nishat Mehta, Shreyum Mehta, Karan Mehta, Aseem
Kannada: Venkatesh Prasad, S Aravind, Amit Verma, Veda Krishnamurthy, H Sharath, Sujay Shastry, Deepak Chougle, Raghavendra Raj, Sumanth Bhat, Reena D’Souza, Hitha Chandrasekar, Ankita Amar
Female Commentators for IPL 2023
Veda Krishnamurthy has fallen out of favour for a place in the Indian women’s team. She commentated during the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and also worked in the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in India and the Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa. She will now be donning the commentator’s hat in the IPL.
Jhulan Goswami retired from international cricket after playing in the Lord’s ODI against England last year. Last year, she also became the all-time leading wicket-taker in the 50-over Women’s World Cup. Recently, Goswami worked with the Mumbai Indians in the WPL. She will now be working as a commentator in the WPL.
Sanjana Ganesan, who was involved with the Kolkata Knight Riders and also travelled to South Africa for the WT20 World Cup, is a part of the commentary panel. Ganesan is married for current Indian men’s fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who won’t be a part of IPL 2023 due to a back injury that he sustained last year.
Ridhima Pathak has worked on a number of sports and also was a part of the commentary panel in the Tokyo Olympics. She will now be seen in the IPL.
Here’s the list of female commentators in IPL 2023
Veda Krishnamurthy, Reena D’Souza, Ankita Amar, Hitha Chandrasekar, Dimpal Singh, Shovna Mishra, Loriya Mohanty, Sneh Upadhyay, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Renu Joseph, Sithara, Palak Sharma, Jhulan Goswami, Jyothi Ramana, Pratyusha, Gnaneswari, Sameena Anwar, Gayathri Suresh, Snehal Pradhan, Poorvi Bhave, Mithali Raj, Ridhima Pathak, Surbhi Vaid, Sanjana Ganesan, Supriya Singh.
IPL 2023 Commentators List
Overall, we can see that the commentary panel consists of some of the best in the world. Even as there are veterans, who have been plying their trade in the commentary box for nearly two decades, a few of them have come into the profession after retiring from the sport. There are also personalities like Harsha Bhogle, who isn’t a former cricketer, but doesn’t have any less knowledge than a professional cricketer.
The commentary panel for the IPL 2023 shows a whole lot of promise and there’s no doubt that the upcoming season will be an absolute cracker.
