XtraTime Web Desk: Cricket lovers in the country will not be able to hear the LIVE radio commentary of the India matches during the ICC Cricket World Cup which starts in England next month from May 30. The right for the radio commentary for the marquee event is acquired by Sports Flashes. According to sources, the All India Radio is believed to have declined sharing the feed with Sports Flashes. Prasar Bharati could not manage to buy the audio rights from Sports Flashes, sole and exclusive media rights holder for the ICC World Cup. According to Mr Raman Raheja, Founder and MD of Sports Flashes, “We are the global rights holder for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 and we are producing and distributing the content around the world which includes platforms like ABC Sports, Sri Lanka Broadcast Corporation, South Africa Broadcast Corporation and others. So we are distributing the contents globally and wanted to partner with All India Radio which they were not keen. They have not accepted our feed and the situation right now is that Indian viewers will not be able to hear the commentary from the event.” Sports Flashes will produce the live commentary from the stadiums across England during the tournament. The commentators' list is quite interesting and includes the names of Sunil Gavaskar, Harbhajan Singh, Kumar Sangakkara, Wasim Akram, Deep Dasgupta, Brad Hogg, Michael Clarke and Athar Ali Khan. Lack of “content professionals” in Prasar Bharati has reportedly resulted in All India Radio’s failure to secure the audio (commentary) rights of the FIH Hockey World Cup which was staged in Bhuvneshwar from November 28 to December 16 last year in Bhubaneswar.

ICC CWC 2019: No radio commentary as AIR fails to acquire rights