Son of the soil coaches WC cricket commentators

PATNA: Vikas Kumar, a youth from Biharsharif in Nalanda district, now based in Mumbai, has added a new feather in his cap. After teaching many Bollywood actors how to speak Hindi and other regional languages with accuracy and fluency, for the last two months, he has been tutoring commentators and other anchors for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. Incidentally, he does not have a formal degree in Hindi or English.Yet, he is in demand due to his command
over diction.
“Starting with Pro Kabaddi League in July last year, followed by ISL (India Super League for football) and then IHL (Indian Hockey League) in January, and now the ICC Cricket World Cup, I trained all the commentators and anchors,” said Vikas while talking to TOI on phone.
“This is the first time that the World Cup cricket matches are being telecast in six different languages — English, Hindi, Tamil, Bangla, Malayalam & Kannada. I trained all the commentators and experts for four regional languages, and some from the Hindi team. … I now monitor the TV commentary. I don't really understand Tamil or Malayalam, but my job is to take care of the voice, the energy and other speech-related aspects,” said Vikas.
“Some of the ex-cricketers that I trained are R P Singh, VVS Laxman, Shoaib Mallik (former Pakistan captain), Akash Chopra, Deep Das Gupta, Hemang Badani, Abbey Kuruvilla, Rohan Gavaskar and Devang Gandhi,” added Vikas.
R P Singh told TOI, “I and many other former cricketers who are now into commentary, attended training classes organized by Vikas. It really helped me improve my diction.” Hemang Badani, who is now doing commentary for the ICC Cricket World Cup in Tamil, said, “At his training sessions, we learnt how to control our pitch and voice modulation.”