A few years back, when I auditioned to become a ‘Cricket Commentator’

I know it is a little hard to believe that I did it, but yes it is a truth and nothing but the truth that I auditioned to become a ‘Cricket Commentator’ for ESPN Sports.

I will not bore you to death to know the climax of this story and so I have decided to tell you whether I made in the finals or not. I made it to the first two rounds of the audition which was judged by 3 panelists. Two of the panelists were very-well-known cricketers Mr. Wasim Akhram from Pakistan and Mr. Ravi Shastri from India and the third judge was the Page 3 and Bollywood personality Ms. Perizaad Zorabian.

At the second and final round, I faltered and hence couldn’t make it to the finale, in which short-listed participants from each city would compete. But believe me, it was an experience of a life-time.

A nail-biting selection process
The first round was simple where the judges were basically looking for that perfect diction, the right attitude and upbeat behavior of the participants. During this round, a full screen slim monitor with a cricket match projection was presented to us. Each participant was then made to give a running commentary for a mere 2mins. I simply cannot give you a self-evaluation here but the panelists were pretty impressed and they called me for the second round scheduled the very next day.

Everything going-bravo until here, I moved to the second round – all unprepared. The main aim of this round was to judge the screen presence of the participant and also to judge the technical cricket knowledge he/she had about the game. Without saying - to be a good Commentator, it is very important to be technically sound with a game. Although I got a thumbs-up for my screen presence, the technicality of the game is where I ******* up ;-).

The entire audition process was recorded by ESPN Sports and then telecasted on-air- 2 weeks later.

My experience
It was an enriching experience – something that I will never forget. The panelist offcourse told me that I would be a very good anchor/ presenter, if I speak in a subject of my relevance like current issues, offbeat topics, music, movies, et al.

I remember of taking 2 casual day off from office, to be a part of this big event called “Harsha Ki Khoj” initiated by ESPN Sports. In another 2 weeks time when the show was telecasted on ESPN sports, I received an unexpected email from my colleague from our Bangalore office, actually telling me that he was happy to see me on television but hard-luck. My initial reaction was like what the hell was that! Did he actually see me???

Then came a few of my friends and people in the neighborhood, who happened to see me on television and actually asked me the same damn thing. This was a whole big secret- I actually didn’t tell anyone that I was going to do something so strange, but in-the-end got caught.

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Before I sign out, as I always say take very good care of yourself and God Bless!

Stick around, because life is beautiful!