MUMBAI: Come 13 March, one – the much awaited India Pak cricket series start and two – the BBC will be pulling out all stops for covering the series. BBC World Television, BBC World Service radio and domestic outlets of the BBC will be providing extensive coverage of India’s upcoming tour of Pakistan from next week.
BBC South Asia correspondent Nick Bryant is in to Pakistan to lead the coverage on BBC World together with Paul Anderson and Zaffar Abbas (Islamabad correspondents). They will be providing analysis and commentary around the matches for BBC World Service English output and other language services and will be joined by expert commentators from both India and Pakistan.
On BBC World Service, BBC Bengali examines the history of the India-Pakistan cricket relationship in a six-part series presented by Uday Das. Reporter Hasan Masood will keep listeners up to date with all the happenings at this very special event with reports from the matches, exclusive interviews with key players and feedback from the cricket fans.
BBC Hindi will bring the full action of the Indo-Pak Cricket on air and online. In the first of a six-part series, presenter Nagendar Sharma interviews former Indian captain, Bishan Singh Bedi. A two member team led by Delhi-based Rehan Fazal will file reports from inside the stadium throughout the tournament. At a special Talking Point with Nagendar Sharma at the helm, the listeners will discuss the matches, their favourite teams – or just get a point off their chest.
The services online site, www.bbchindi.com has dedicated a page to the Indo-Pak Cricket where visitors can respond to the question of the week and put across their views. There will be match by match analyses from former cricket players, a comprehensive archive of facts and figures on all the previous Indo-Pak games, player profiles, and a constantly updated picture gallery.
On the other hand, BBC Urdu has pulled on board Imran Khan and Hanif Mohammed to bring the Indo-Pak games to its audience. The former Pakistani cricket captains will comment throughout the series before and after the matches. Visitors to www.bbcurdu.com can also read their comments and analysis online as well as follow a special column by former Pakistan batsman and captain, Zaheer Abbas. The present Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq will feature in a Talking Point where audiences can put questions to him both on air and online.
In the run-up to the forthcoming cricket season, BBC World’s popular weekly chat show Face to Face is featuring some of the best young Indian cricketers. The programme, which can be seen every Saturday night at 10 pm, will give viewers an insight into the lives of some of the best up-and-coming performers such as Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh, who talk about their success and ambitions.
Starting 14 March, BBC World will be airing Close Encounters, a series of short vignettes with Indian and Pakistani cricketers. The mini-interviews, with cricketers such as Javagal Srinath, Sanjay Manjrekar, Javed Miandad and Aamir Sohail, focus on dramatic past encounters between the two
In addition BBC Worlds regular sports programme, Sport Today will feature roundups and score updates in all bulletins while matches are in progress.
The bbcnews.com/southasia site will also be sending in its online correspondent, Ayanjit Sen, to cover the series for its award-winning site. The BBCi sport website will have analysis and reports from India’s tour of Pakistan with expert opinion from players past and present.
“India’s tour of Pakistan is one of the most eagerly anticipated sporting events of the past decade,” said BBC Radio Sport head Gordon Turnbull. “So it is very exciting that BBC Radio can use its networks to give it the coverage it deserves.”
With BBC Radio’s exclusive UK rights to the series, Radio Five Live will be providing regular updates and reports including a three hour special live report from the first one day match at Karachi. BBC Asian Network will also have live commentary of the opening one-day international between the arch rivals. The three Test matches will be broadcast live on Five Live Sports Extra, with extensive reports on the Asian Network and Five Live with the remaining four one-day internationals being reported on both stations.
