Harsha Bhogle

Harsha Bhogle (born 19 July 1961) is an Indian cricket Commentator and journalist. He was born in a Marathi speaking family in Hyderabad. Bhogle has recently become a TV presenter.

Harsha Bhogle is the son of Prof.A.D.Bhogle, a Professor of French, and Prof.Shalini Bhogle, a Professor of Psychology. He attended Hyderabad Public School, and subsequently received BTech Chemical Engineering degree from Osmania University's College of Technology at Hyderabad.He received PGDM(Diploma in Management) from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.Then, he joined an advertising agency and worked there for two years, following which he completed another two-year at a sports management company.

Bhogle began his career as a cricket player for the APCA and has played small level cricket. Then he started commentating at the age of 19 with All India Radio, while living in Hyderabad. In 1991–92, he became the first Indian commentator to be invited by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation during India's cricket series before the 1992 Cricket World Cup. He has since worked for ABC Radio Grandstand during India's Australian tours, and for eight years worked for the BBC as part of their commentary team in the 1996 and the 1999 Cricket World Cups.

Since 1995, he has been presenting live cricket from all around the world for ESPN STAR Sports and was part of the 'Few Good Men' commentary team that included Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavaskar, and Alan Wilkins along with Geoff Boycott and Navjot Singh Sidhu, for few seasons, and later, Ian Chappell and Sanjay Manjrekar.

He covered the 2011–'12 series in Australia solely for ABC Radio.

Harsha has been covering all Indian Premier League seasons since 2009. He was dropped from the commentary team by BCCI in April 2016 due to alleged criticism from Indian players. While his right to free speech has been defended by many in India, his style of commentary is considered bumbling by others.

He has hosted television programs such as Harsha Online, Harsha Unplugged and School Quiz Olympiad for ESPN and Star Sports.

Harsha had a Television programme named after him, "Harsha ki khoj"/"Hunt of Harsha", that strived to find broadcasting talent in India.

Harsha expanded his online presence by hosting *Out of the Box with Harsha Bhogle on YouTube

Bhogle was voted the favourite TV cricket commentator by Cricinfo users based on a worldwide poll. Bhogle has also anchored BBC's travel serial Travel India and Business Today Acumen Business Quiz and Debate competitions.

Bhogle was the advisor to the Mumbai Indians for the 2008 IPL.

Bhogle has published and authored a number of books, including a biography of Mohammad Azharuddin and a collection of columns in The Indian Express, Out of the Box – Watching the Game We Love and is also a columnist for the Chennai-based "The Sportstar" a subsidiary of The Hindu group of Publications under the title "Hitting Hard" by Bhogle. (2009). Bhogle has presented the program TRAVEL INDIA WITH HARSHA BHOGLE on the Discovery channel and TLC.

In the 2011 World Cup held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, he anchored the pre and post match shows that featured Simon Hughes, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sunil Gavaskar, Tony Greig and Sourav Ganguly.

Bhogle's presence in electronic media can be seen through his Twitter account @bhogleharsha and his weekly article previously on ESPNcricinfo and now on starsports.com

Harsha currently hosts a weekly show called "This Week's Special" aired on Star Sports. The show takes the viewers back in time to make them relive the cricketing memories from the past. The first episode aired from 1 October 2015. In 10-04-2016 Harsha's IPL contract as a commentator terminated. The decision came as a surprise for the voice of Indian cricket since he had conducted the Season 9 draft auction, featured in the league’s promotional videos, was in the commentators’ 51-day-long duty roster, and even had his flight booked by the production house.Board officials said Bhogle had an angry exchange with a cricket official at the venue as he wanted him to open the door, and this reached the Nagpur-based BCCI president Shashank Manohar. Those in the know said this incident was the trigger that resulted in Bhogle losing out.

He and his wife Anita Bhogle have written a book titled The Winning Way based on business knowledge drawn from the sporting world. This book is result of ten years of work and experience in sports based communication. He has also authored a biography of Mohammad Azharuddin. His collection of articles is published in a book called Out of the Box.

Harsha is married to Anita, his classmate in IIM-A, and the couple live in Mumbai with their sons Chinmay and Satchit. Harsha, along with his wife, Anita, runs a sport-based communication consultancy called Prosearch.