"“I was told that the famous English sports commentator, John Helm, thought my voice is unique. During the commentary period, I tend to stay away from cold water and ice cream so as to maintain that peculiar quality”" — Vijay Karthikeyan, Tamil commentator

"“You have to tell the audience about the process behind the action onscreen. You have to be unbiased but also be sensitive with your choice of words because there’s a vertical divide in the state between Brazil and Argentina”" — Pallab Basumallik, Bangla commentator

"“A lot of verbs in Telugu end in a vowel sound. So, I try to avoid ending a sentence with a verb so as not to break the flow of commentary”" — C Venkatesh, Telugu commentator

"“Englishmen call Telugu the Italian of the East. It’s a musical language. There are a lot of similarities between the flow of Italian and Telugu commentary for the same reason”" — A Joseph Antony, Telugu commentator

"“Despite the funny anecdotes and the theatrics, we never miss a single key action and try to name 90% of the players during the game”" — Joseph George, Malayalam commentator

"“In the quarter-final between France and Uruguay, Shaiju started talking about the 1972 plane crash involving Uruguay’s rugby team that led the survivors to cannibalism. I was thinking how to start off from that point and talk about the game”" — Bineesh Kiran, Malayalam commentator

"“Commentary is not about shouting. It’s an art. Football lovers in Bengal focus on the match and are very critical of your commentary should you make a mistake”" — Pradip Roy, Bangla commentator

"“Those who listen to the Hindi commentary are not necessarily passionate followers of clubs like Manchester United. So, we tell them about the game, its rules — things you won’t say in English commentary”" — Novy Kapadia, Hindi commentator

"“You try and add some juice to the narrative but the moment you overdo it, you’ll upset a lot of people and risk being judged for that one line in a 90-minute commentary”" — Manish Batavia, Hindi commentator

"“Two days before the tournament, all language commentators appointed Novy sir to standardise pronunciation of player names across languages”" — Sunil Taneja, Hindi commentator

It was the second day of the World Cup. Portuguese sensation Cristiano Ronaldo was on the cusp of a hat-trick against Spain. The moment arrived in the 88th minute in the form of a free kick awarded just outside the penalty box. With a short run up, Ronaldo sent the ball curving past a row of airborne defenders and a baffled goalkeeper, into the top right corner of the post, in a feat of athletic precision that electrified the tournament. It was also the moment when Malayalam football commentator Shaiju Damodaran became a viral star.Damodaran, well known among the game’s fans in football-mad Kerala, pulled off a theatrical piece of commentary that could rival the most frenzied South American commentators. By the next day his feverish commentary byte, peppered with superlatives and popular movie dialogues, was heard around the country, thanks to an avalanche of WhatsApp forwards.Billionaire Anand Mahindra tweeted that he was switching to the Malayalam feed even though he didn’t follow the language. English commentary seemed staid in comparison. Parody videos of kids lip-syncing to Damodaran’s commentary have been doing the rounds on WhatsApp ever since. The idea to use Kabali’s famous line, “I have arrived, tell them I have arrived,” for Ronaldo, was his elder son’s; the antics, his own. He had a script ready should Lionel Messi score big for Argentina later in the series. He was going to riff on a line his favourite football commentator Ray Hudson had used to describe Messi during La Liga earlier this year: “Shakespeare got it wrong. It wasn’t King Lear. It’s King Leo.” Except, Messi didn’t quite shine this time. Damodaran likened Messi to Singham, a lion who comes alone for a battle.About 70% of the viewers who tuned into the football action this World Cup watched it on an Indic language feed, according to data from Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). This means commentators like Damodaran, all of whom possess their own styles, legacy and notions of what is suitable in their language, bring alive the game to millions of fans in their mother tongue. Kerala is the smaller of the two major football-mad states of India, the larger one being West Bengal. Bengal has enjoyed football commentary in its native language for over six decades now. Pradip Roy has been a part of this legacy for the last 43 years.Football commentary is an art, says Pradipda (as he is popularly known in the circuit). Pradipda, however, is not a fan of theatrics to catch the audience’s attention. “Shaiju works well for the Malayalam audience, perhaps. I’m not sure how well the Bengali audience will receive his style of commentary. They are very serious about the sport and very critical of the commentary.”Critics may call it a bit over the top, but Damodaran claims it is this infotainment-led commentary that brings his fans to the yard. It is tough to match up to his pace in the commentary box though, Bineesh Kiran and Joseph George, his co-commentators, admit.He’ll talk about chocolates, rugby teams of the past, Kishore Kumar, even Sachin Tendulkar. Sometimes he goes so far off on a tangent, Kiran has to struggle to veer the narrative back to the game. “But we never miss a single key action and name 90% of the players during the match,” says George (commentators must be able to recognise and name most of the 576 players in the group stages).Whatever it is that they are doing, it seems to have worked. The Malayalam feed has contributed to 41% of the live FIFA match ratings from Kerala over the past one month, up from 29% in the first week to 48% in the fourth, according to figures released by BARC and Sony Pictures Network (SPN) India, the network that holds FIFA 2018 media rights for India.Of the 96.7 million people who have sampled live FIFA matches on SPN this year, 70% have done so in a local Indian language. Besides the usual feeds in Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, this FIFA world cup had a separate Tamil and Telugu feed for the first time. It has been a game changer for Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh where a total of 3.8 million viewers have sampled the regional feed over the last one month. Football has never been a rage in either of the two states. “But now, even housewives have started following the sport even if they may not know many players,” says KV Sathyanarayanan (Nanee), Tamil sports commentator. Between him and Vijay Karthikeyan, they form a lean team of footballers turned commentators.If wisecracks from Rajinikanth movies are a recurring theme in Tamil football commentary, Baahubali provides enough fodder for its Telugu counterpart, notes A Joseph Antony, sports writer and Telugu commentator. Hindi commentators, however, are circumspect of overdoing Bollywood references. It should be used like salt in the food, in moderation, says Sunil Taneja, Hindi commentator.It’s also important to use the language of the people, they say. Nanee and Karthikeyan use colloquial Tamil in their commentary as opposed to Sentamizh, a purer, poetic form of the language often used in radio commentary. Telugu commentator C Venkatesh avoids ending a sentence with a verb because a lot of verbs in Telugu end in a vowel sound, which breaks the flow of the commentary. Literal translations are strictly avoidable. “If we start finding Hindi equivalents for penalties and offside, we’ll miss the goal and the match, too,” quips Hindi commentator Manish Batavia.Language commentary is for the family and not just the fanatics. It is to enhance the viewing experience of those who find it difficult to grasp the English accent. Veteran sports journalist and Hindi commentator Novy Kapadia recalls an instance when his friend mistook an English commentator’s “Alex Ferguson runs a tight ship” for the former Manchester United manager’s entry into the shipping industry. “In language commentary, you can’t use phrases that the English commentators would take for granted. You have to be a bit like a teacher.” Some viewers might not know basic rules. Language commentary is also meant to educate the uninitiated.“You have to tell the audience about the process behind the action onscreen--things the eyes don’t see,” says Bengali commentator Pallab Basumallik. Basumallik, like Pradipda, has been in this industry for decades. When he began his career in 1975, he made `25 per match. The amount went to Rs 100 in five years. Today, an average sports commentator makes anywhere between Rs 10,000 and `1 lakh, depending on the nature of sport and the seniority of the commentator. But senior or rookie, every commentator has to be unbiased, says Basumallik. Especially for West Bengal and Kerala, they have to be sensitive with their choice of words because there’s a vertical divide in the states between Brazil and Argentina. “And fans can get deeply hurt.” Sports commentators do have their favourites though. But, as Batavia points out, most of the favourites have been knocked out of the game. This has been a tournament of surprises and shocks, even for the commentators whose job also involves analysis and prediction. “It’s good in a way though. By the end of Sunday, the world of football will have a new narrative.” And so will they.