The sin of being Harsha Bhogle

Somewhere down the line, those had turned into a mere reminder of how versatile the human mind can be and how insignificant academic accolades can be.

In a way, it was his boy-next-door image, which had earned him his followers. He did not possess the glamour which is usually seen as a significant facet of being a television presenter. With a receding hairline, out of fashion spectacles, a child-like enthusiasm, and an innate mastery over words, Harsha Bhogle became the poster-boy of commentary in India. As Aayush Puthran wrote for Cricbuzz, “For many in India, when the dream of becoming a Sachin Tendulkar fades away, the aspiration to become a Harsha Bhogle rises.”

He knew what the viewers wanted to hear from the Tony Greigs and Geoffrey Boycotts, and he made sure that his questions led to those answers.

In this age, when the standard of journalism is under constant scrutiny, when the moral values of a profession, which was once considered to be one of the pillars of a successful democracy, has been tainted with political or corporate agendas, the Harsha Bhogles of this world are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

It was Harsha Bhogle’s stance to remain unbiased in the commentary box which had endeared him to the cricket fans, but it was that same unbiased stance which eventually led to his expulsion, or at least was one of the reasons.

A lot of possible reasons have been speculated – from heated arguments with the officials at Nagpur regarding a closed VIP box during the opening game of the World T20 to a bunch of senior Indian cricketers not liking what he had said about them on air, to a tweet from Amitabh Bachchan. While the first reason seems plausible as the Vidarbha Cricket Association is a powerful unit of the BCCI, it is the last two reasons which we really need to worry about.

Mr. Bachchan had felt that the ‘Indian’ commentators were speaking a bit too much about the Bangladeshi cricketers after their narrow loss against India in the World T20, and he tweeted his views. To add fuel to the fire, MS Dhoni retweeted Amitabh Bachchan’s post with the words, “Nothing to add”. It was later reported that a few of the senior players in the Indian team were not pleased with what was being said about them, and had also confronted an ‘unnamed’ commentator on a flight before his other teammates intervened.

However, Harsha made the mistake of choosing facts, like he had done for the most of his career, to reply to jingoism. That was not the saddest part of this whole incident, though. A veteran in the media and entertainment industry expecting a cricket commentator to follow the newly found script of patriotism live on air on a feed which is broadcast across the world is shameful. A bunch of senior cricketers, which of course included MS Dhoni, who are unable to handle criticism when they perform poorly, deciding to bully a commentator off his job is disgraceful.

Harsha once wrote, “Entertainment is an escape from reality, sports is an escape into reality” - It is just that the reality has changed a lot since he stepped into this profession, starry-eyed, almost 36 years ago.

All this to a commentator who has often received criticism for not having an opinion of his own is hilarious, though. Harsha Bhogle has his opinions, and in fact, most of his illustrious co-workers have attested to the fact that his cricketing knowledge is second to none, but he avoids putting them out on televisions. He is a storyteller, and yet he remains unbiased towards all the characters in the story. His opinions are reserved for the articles and columns he writes for numerous publications. Sadly, most do not have the know-how to appreciate such clarity in thoughts or such old-school journalism.

Geoffrey Boycott once said Sachin may be a great batsman but he never got his name on the Lord's honours boards. To which Harsha Bhogle had replied, “So whose loss is it, Sachin’s or the honour boards?”

In the long run, it is the loss of those thousands of aspiring Harsha Bhogles, who were encouraged by his success. Renowned journalist Anand Vasu had once compared Bhogle to Shane Warne, and he wrote, “They made a complicated and tricky art appear easy, prompting many imitations, but no true successors.”

We are unlikely to see another Harsha Bhogle anytime soon. We are unlikely to witness someone who is not a former international cricketer garner so much love and adoration in the commentary box. It is also a blow for journalists who still aspire to be unbiased - ‘neutral’ is so 90s.