Kanpur’s Ravi Chaturvedi stands tall among 10 greatest commentators
LUCKNOW: Ravi Chaturvedi, veteran cricket commentator from Kanpur’s Dalip Nagar village, has been named among the top 10 greatest cricket commentators of all time.
He joins the rank of Harsha Bhogle, John Arlott, Anant Setalvad, Richie Benaud, Tony Grieg, Bill Lawry, Geoffrey Boycott, Sunil Gavaskar and Tony Cozier.
Chaturvedi, 83, who has also been the author of 27 books on cricket, including World Cup Cricket, is credited as the first Hindi commentator who joined All India Radio in 1961. He was conferred with Padma Shri in 2012 and he feels that being recognized as one among the top 10 cricket commentators in the world is the result of his hard work and long journey from a village to international stage.
At the age of just eight, Chaturvedi along with his family moved to Delhi from Kanpur in 1945. They landed at the Delhi’s Mall Road where British officers played cricket coupled with inter-college cricket tournament on nearby Delhi University.
“In fact the cricket ground made an eight-year-old kid a cricket maniac. My cricket obsession paved way to play for school, college (Delhi College) and club (City Gymkhana in DDCA league –Division A). My passion for cricket reached its peak while listening to BBC covering India’s 1946 England tour and doyen John Arlott commenting on it,” he recalls.
“In 1948, I saw first Test at Kotla India-West Indies, next witnessed 1950 India-Commonwealth Test at Kanpur. This exposure exponentially increased my longing for cricket. AIR commentary in 1948 where out of five, Pearson Surita became my idol and on becoming commentator, KV Gopalaratnam, a veteran journalist suggested pragmatically to give score both in Hindi and English to make Hindi commentary acceptable in South India,” he added.
Chaturvedi, who has done his M.Sc. in Zoology, besides other degrees including a Ph.D. in cricket (physical education), made his debut as first Hindi commentator of All India Radio in 1961. Over the years, he has covered 112 Tests and 220 ODIs, apart from other sporting events. He has also commentated for all the sports channels and radios.
Recalling his maiden commentary stint in Caribbean in 1976 in third Test, as his best match of life Chaturvedi said that it was a lifetime proud moment when Windies captain Clive Lloyd challenged India to chase 403 and visitors romped home convincingly, announcing of victory made a very emotional moment and he escorted skipper Bishen Bedi and manager Pollly Umrigar for AIR interview at Queens Park Oval, Trinidad
Even in the TV era now, when people hardly show interest in listening commentary on radio, Chaturvedi asserted that radio will always remain everyone’s favourite. “Radio will always remain a mass media (sadly treated as poor cousin of TV) with huge cricket following on radio. TV with its glamour of Ex-Test stars as commentators and beautiful faces as anchors and presenters is ruling the roost in urban viewers. Radio commentary has still survived the rough road.”
He, however, suggests that for the new generation, taking up commentary was a good opportunity. “The prerequisite is sound knowledge of the game, command over language, communicate like a story-teller, interspersed with statistics and interesting episodes makes commentary commendable, and I would love to see the younger generation take the radio commentary forward.”