Shardul Thakur - (Source: AFP)
India officially kickstarted its UK tour on Friday, June 26, as the Men in Blue locked horns against Ireland in the first of two T20Is. The main challenge lies against England, which follows the Irish challenge. The Men in Blue will square off against the Three Lions for 5 T20Is and 3 ODIs.
The much-important series will run from July 1 to July 19. In the latest developments, the broadcaster Sony Network has revealed the star-studded commentary panel.
Shardul Thakur To Make Commentary Debut
In a surprising turn, India’s active star, Shardul Thakur, has been added to the commentary panel, marking his debut in the studio box. The 34-year-old will be part of the Hindi commentary panel for both T20Is and ODIs.
Shardul Thakur will be joined by Ajay Jadeja, Ambati Rayudu, Vivek Razdan, Gaurav Kapur, and Atish Thukral by his side. Notably, Shardul Thakur is out of the scheme of things and was recently playing in the Mumbai T20 League.
There is no domestic action for nearly a month now, which gives the right-arm seamer the opportunity to try his hand at commentary.
Full Commentary Panel Announced For India vs England Tour
The broadcasters announced that the upcoming India vs England series will be covered in five languages, including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada.
Notably, the Kannada language will be covered for the first time by Sony Sports dedicately.
English
- T20Is: Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Graeme Swann and Sanjana Ganesan
- ODIs: Ravi Shastri, Graeme Swann, Ambati Rayudu and Sanjana Ganesan
Hindi
- T20I: Shardul Thakur, Ajay Jadeja, Ambati Rayudu, Vivek Razdan, Gaurav Kapur, and Atish Thukral
- ODI: Shardul Thakur, Ajay Jadeja, Vivek Razdan, Samir Kochhar, and Atish Thukral
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Tamil
- T20I: WV Raman, Vidhyut Sivaramakrishnan, Bhagavathy Prasad and Arun Karthik
- ODI: WV Raman, Vidhyut Sivaramakrishnan, Bhagavathy Prasad, Arun Karthik, and Baba Aparajith
Telugu
- T20I: KS Bharat, Sandeep Kumar, Gnaneswar Rao, Rakesh Deva and Vijay Gaud
- ODI: KS Bharat, Sandeep Kumar, Venkatapathy Raju, Rakesh Deva and Ravi Teja
Kannada
- T20I: Sujith Somasunder, Sumath Bhat, Amit Verma and Raghavendra Raj
- ODI: KS Bharat, Sandeep Kumar, Venkatapathy Raju, Rakesh Deva, Ravi Teja, and Sujay Shastri
KS Bharat To Make His Commentary Debut After Retirement
Not just Shardul Thakur, but KS Bharat will also make his commentary debut during the India vs England series. He will just be available for ODI series. For the unversed, KS Bharat recently announced his India retirement.
On Thursday, June 4, KS Bharat announced his retirement from international cricket. The 32-year-old took to his Instagram account and confirmed the same with an emotional social media post.
The decision stemmed from the fact that it allows KS Bharat to play franchise cricket across the globe. Now, Bharat has relocated to Dubai and is all set to feature in ILT20.
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