AIR listeners deprived of Bengali commentary for Eden ODI

Kolkata, Dec 24 : For the first time in half a century, cricket enthusiasts were Thursday deprived of listening to All India Radio's (AIR) live Bengali commentary of an international cricket tie at the Eden Gardens during the India-Sri Lanka one-dayer here.

"Only English and Hindi commentaries are being broadcast over AIR. This is as par an agreement between official broadcaster Neo Sports and AIR. The broadcaster has said no to regional language commentaries during the series," AIR Kolkata station director Pradip Mitra told IANS.

Considering the popularity of Bengali cricket commentary, the AIR Kolkata officials had written to their head office for a review after getting to know that they have to do away with the tradition, but it proved futile.

Bengali cricket commentary over AIR has been an integral part of Test and One-Day matches since 1959, and the rich diction and world play of legends like Ajoy Bose and Pushpen Sarkar had made them household names in the state.

When contacted, a Neo Sports official said he was not sure of any such clause in the contract.

However, he indicated that the popularity of regional language cricket commentary has gone down in recent time.

"Earlier, we tried out regional language commentary over television. But that had few takers," he added.