Too India-centric means being unfair to others: Harsha Bhogle responds to Amitabh, Dhoni's comments

Harsha Bhogle reacted to veteran Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan’s accusation of certain commentators focusing more on overseas players that on the Indians.

Bhogle, who has been one of the world’s leading English cricket commentators for more than two decades now, responded to Bachchan’s statement on Saturday, saying that English commentators needed to be objective in their approach due to the fact that they catered to a global audience.

I must confess to being a bit taken aback by the intensity of the criticism yesterday over the question of focussing…

Posted by Harsha Bhogle on  Thursday, 24 March 2016

Bhogle, who is currently in Star Sports’  commentary panel for the ICC World T20, added that his Hindi counterparts could be a little more India-centric, and not India-biased.

On 24 March, a day after India’s nail-biting one-run win over Bangladesh at Bengaluru that has kept their World T20 campaign alive, Bachchan took to microblogging website Twitter to express his views over Indian commentators speaking about overseas players all the time.

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

Bachchan, who sang the national anthem for India during their high-voltage match against Pakistan at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on 19 March, found support from the likes of Indian limited-overs skipper MS Dhoni, who “nothing to add”.

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

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

Incidentally, Dhoni had lost his cool at a journalist during the post-match media interaction after the India-Bangladesh match.

Bachchan also found support from various other users on Twitter, who praised him for helping raise the silent issue.

@vajir I am so happy that you agree .. fed up ho gaye yaar .. !!

— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) March 23, 2016

Let us hope there is no love lost between Bachchan and Bhogle, with the latter adding that it was an honour for him to be followed by one of India’s all-time leading actors.