Tour of West Indies marks return of Harsha Bhogle to the commentary box

After having a forced hiatus of 14 months, Harsha Bhogle will return to the commentary box during India’s tour of West Indies. India will play 5 ODIs, the first of which will begin on Friday, along with a solitary T20 game. This is the first series after the Kohli-Kumble fiasco and the team will be desperate to get their focus back on cricket.

Bhogle had been removed from the commentary panel for more than a year by the BCCI due to undisclosed reasons. His last stint in the box was in the World T20 in 2016, which was won by West Indies when they defeated England by 4 wickets at the Eden Gardens. However, Bhogle has been active on social media and various pre-match and post-match analysis shows to give his two cents on the game. The 55-year-old took to Twitter to announce his return to commentary.

I go from here to the West Indies. Am looking forward to hosting cricket and doing commentary from there. Your support has meant a lot to me

— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) June 18, 2017

Harsha Bhogle is now a renowned voice in the circles of cricket and his continuous exclusion from the commentary box caused a lot of clamour. He began his career aged 19 when he started working with All India Radio. He became the first Indian to be invited by Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1991-92 to cover India’s cricket series. Since then Bhogle has come up from the ranks to become one of the most venerated commentators from India.

Hailing from Hyderabad, Bhogle hasn’t played any recognised cricket but is regarded as a cricket pundit for more than two decades. According to reports Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and India captain, MS Dhoni wasn’t particularly happy with Bhogle’s work. Amitabh through a tweet had expressed disappointment that Indian commentators don’t appreciate their own players too much. Dhoni replied to the tweet by writing “nothing to add”.

This might be one of the reasons for his hiatus. During his ouster, Bhogle posted a long message on his Facebook to express his views on the same saying that the “players create the stories and we are merely storytellers”.