Seasoned India commentator Harsha Bhogle has garnered a stellar reputation worldwide as the ‘Voice of Cricket’. However, it seems Harsha might have gotten just a bit too mischievous with his voice this time around; and his fans certainly didn’t appreciate it.Â
Harsha Bhogle’s live feed gets cut off while talking to a sports channel
Over on an interaction with a sports channel on Instagram, Harsha gave the cricketing world a near heart attack when he had a scary, abrupt interruption in his live feed. While speaking on Mumbai and Chennai’s chances of winning the IPL, Harsha seemed to be cut off in a very bizarre manner. He was heard asking ‘Kon hai? Kaha se aa gye?’ (Who’s here? Where have they come from?) in an alarmed voice.Â
It took the in-show host a while to comprehend exactly what was going on. But once there was another voice yelling ‘Gate band karo!’ (Close the gates) in an equally frenetic tone, things got really serious. The host had to drop off the live show citing technical difficulties on Harsha’s end, leaving a large number of fans around the world in a state of utter panic and confusion.Â
The clip of Harsha Bhogle’s scary call interruption became viral in no time, and people started to get really worried if Harsha was dealing with some kind of an intruder scare.Â
What just happened? Is @bhogleharsha okay???
I NEED ANSWERS. pic.twitter.com/TrhU55gIxj
— JD (@JaidevNandi) March 24, 2022
Guess what? It was a ‘prank’
It took a clarification tweet from Harsha himself to assuage all the fans he had managed to get anxious. And there’s a reason we’re phrasing it like that, because once people learned what had actually happened…well, it’s fair to say they were not in the least bit amused.
I am fine. Sorry to have got a lot of you worried. Thank you for the love and concern. It became more viral than I anticipated. That too is a learning. It was meant to lead to something else. Sorry. And cheers.
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) March 24, 2022
Apparently, Harsha had come up with that clip as a farce to emphatically make his point of MI and CSK’s stranglehold in the tournament. And not unsurprisingly, fans vented out their frustration at Harsha for his innocuous ‘prank’. People were disappointed at how disparagingly Harsha talked about the other teams’ chances; while the bigger issue that annoyed them was that Harsha didn’t have the decency to post a video to properly issue the clarification.
He has since made a couple of apology tweets- cryptic and candid- to try to talk down the situation. All we can say is, especially after watching the Cricbuzz live show he appeared in earlier today- Harsha probably got hold of one of the old RCB jerseys. But still, we’re glad that he’s safe.Â
You learn something new everyday. It seemed a lighthearted thing to do but in its execution, it became something that I didn't think it would. I am actually a bit embarrassed now. https://t.co/OwFrwb6vm9
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) March 24, 2022
