Harsha Bhogle is an Indian cricket commentator and journalist. He was born in a Marathi speaking family in Hyderabad. Bhogle has recently become a freelance TV presenter.
Harsha Bhogle is the son of A. D. Bhogle, a professor of French, and Shalini Bhogle, a professor of psychology. He attended Hyderabad Public School, and subsequently studied chemical engineering at Osmania University at Hyderabad. He did his post graduate program PGDM at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Post-graduation, he joined an advertising agency and worked there for two years, following which he completed another two-year stint 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.
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.
