You know you have a successful career in a particular field if your viewers don’t fail in expressing admiration for you especially in your absence. In former India batter Aakash Chopra’s case, admiring social media posts aren’t merely restricted to praising his forte of being an engaging Hindi commentator but also being about missing him.
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Not that Chopra has retired as a commentator or anything of that sort, but, it’s just that he hasn’t called any of the Indian cricket team’s home matches this year.
Chopra, who not only used to call matches but even host shows for Star Sports Network in all these years, had become a fan-favourite for qualities such as flawless flow and hold on the language, superb knack of rhyming words and, most importantly, sounding relatable to a large majority of Hindi-speaking people.
Chopra, whose last representative match had come over eight years ago, had last worked with Star Sports Network during ICC T20 World Cup 2022.
Why Aakash Chopra is not doing commentary in BGT 2023?
Since then, Chopra, 45, hasn’t been part of the commentary panels during India vs Sri Lanka T20Is, India vs Sri Lanka ODIs, India vs New Zealand ODIs and India vs New Zealand T20Is.
Having said that, you don’t have to investigate a lot to know the fact that Chopra has been working for Viacom18 Media Private Limited of late. One of their analysts during the inaugural Women’s Premier League auction last week, Chopra will also be calling the matches for them during the forthcoming 16th season of the Indian Premier League.
Highly active on social media platform Twitter, Chopra was asked about his absence from Star Sports Network earlier this month. Chopra, however, neither provided details around his comeback on Star nor gave away contractual details with Viacom.
Irrespective of how much fans miss him, it is highly unlikely that Chopra will be part of Star’s commentary team for the last two Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 Test matches or the subsequent three-match ODI series between India and Australia.
Furthermore, it will also be interesting to see Chopra’s next commentary assignment post IPL 2023. With the final match of ICC World Test Championship 2021-23 to be played right after the IPL, Chopra’s fans would be praying for his participation as one of Star’s Hindi commentators.
