The BBC’s services in Bangla, Hindi, Marathi, Pashto, Sinhala, Tamil and Urdu will be adding a new perspective to the Cricket World Cup coverage for fans in the UK and around the world. Throughout the tournament, the BBC’s broadcasts from venues in England and Wales include commentary from BBC World Service’s multilingual journalists who will share their insights with the UK audiences as they report the World Cup to millions of fans in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka as well as diaspora audiences around the world.
Ben Sutherland, Sports Editor for World Service Languages said: “The World Service’s Asian language services have been providing superb cricket coverage for years – and that has only been amplified recently with in-depth reporting and analysis around the Indian Premier League and the Pakistan Super League. The correspondents are great personalities that know the sport – and the players – back to front. The Cricket World Cup in England will give an opportunity for them to be heard in the UK and enhance the already comprehensive coverage of this massive event – part of the BBC’s incredible summer of sport, including also the Women’s World Cup, the African Nations Cup and Wimbledon”
The BBC News Indian languages correspondents, Vinayak Gaiykwad, Sivakumar Ulaganathan and Nitin Srivastava will hear fascinating diaspora stories at this year’s World Cup. All of India’s matches will be covered and fans will talk about their hopes for their team in the historic UK towns and cities where matches will be played. Predictors, match analysis, special stories and FB live during the matches will be available on all platforms of BBC Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil & Telugu. Gaggan Sabherwal will feature a special programme on Sachin Tendulkar’s friendship with Solly Adams, a man who brought Tendulkar to the UK and Yorkshire and is a former cricketer himself.
In a 30-day countdown to the tournament, the BBC News Afghan service in Pashto has been posting a Cricket World Cup question on its social-media platforms each morning and publishing the answer in the evening. The World Cup content includes exclusive interviews with the Afghanistan national team players, their profiles, and a match predictor. A TV and radio documentary by BBC Pashto’s Hameed Qayoomi, tracing the Afghan team’s journey to the 2019 World Cup, will air on the BBC’s Pashto, and global English platforms. Author of a book on the history of Afghan cricket, BBC Pashto multimedia editor Emal Pasarly, will provide daily analysis and commentary. The World Cup will feature in BBC Afghan service’s multimedia output in Dari, with player profiles, cricket jargon busters, match predictors and daily games reports.
BBC News Bangla will run a series of interviews with key Bangladeshi players and videos about iconic venues such as The Oval in London. The service will talk to travelling supporters and Londoners of Bangladeshi origin who are facing the dilemma of which team to support when Bangladesh play England. Reporters Faisal Titumir and Raihan Masud will go live on social media on match days and provide regular reports on radio.
From listicles, daily games reports to in-depth features, BBC News Urdu will delight fans with all things cricket across its TV, radio and digital output. A team of correspondents led by Abdul Rasheed Shakoor will be reporting from inside and outside the stadiums, covering the Pakistan and other important matches and side stories. On FB Lives and other social-media platforms as well as radio programmes, analysts, Sami Chaudhry and Lina Aziz will deliver live games analysis and engage with audiences. Throughout the tournament, BBC Urdu will run exclusive interviews with, and profiles of, key Pakistani players. Special features include stories of Pakistanis who follow cricket back home and reports from Sialkot – hub of Pakistan’s sports manufacturing industry, asking what it is that batters like the most about their bat and what kind of ball makes the bowler happy.
BBC News Africa will report the developments for audiences across the continent.
