In the controversial ‘Hot or Not’ segment, female anchors were asked to swipe left or right in Tinder style among the three cricketer.
New Delhi: The Indian Premier League’s official broadcaster Star Sports faced the heat after new segment aired on Thursday showed women presenters rating the male cricketers in the league based on their looks.
In the video, known presenter Mayanti Langer and other TV hosts in the ongoing edition took part in a Tinder-style segment where they had to swipe left or right in a series of photos that were shown to them. The segment were reported aired before the Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Royal Challengers Bangalore game on Thursday.
Among the cricketers featured in the controversial segment are Virat Kohli, Andre Russell and Shubman Gill. While the presenters swiped left on Kohli, Langer was left embarrassed when Gill’s bare bodied photo cropped up on the big screen.
The females however complimented Russell’s muscular physique. A clip of the segment went viral on social media with fans clearly not happy. “Imagine asking a senior anchor and married woman like Mayanti Langer to pick sides for a junior fellow like Shubman Gill,” an angry fan wrote.
From the good old days of ESPN Star to Star Cricket to this. Whole new level of garbage. Cricket coverage thanks to Star Sports has gone to the dogs. Guess it can’t get any worse. Imagine a set of men rating women cricketers ” hot or not”. Disgusting! 👇 #CricketTwitter https://t.co/ncGWnteSYQ
— Aravinthan Arunthavanathan (@Cricket_decoded) May 18, 2023
Star with their ‘Hot or Not’ segment in today’s pre-match show clearly embarrassed themselves.
Imagine asking a senior anchor and married woman like Mayanti Langer to pick sides for a junior fellow like Shubman Gill. She was clearly uncomfortable. #NotDone#IPL2023
— Subhayan Chakraborty (@CricSubhayan) May 18, 2023
It is not about mayanti actually..asking any one regardless of genders to insult a sports person like this while covering cricket match is whole new level low. Hope BCCI take strong action against it.
— Rajdeep Ghosh (@rajdeep_ghosh) May 18, 2023
This could be one of the lowest points of cricket telecast in India , @BCCI should take some intiative here so there won’t be any such kind of programs again.
— T Vishnuvardhan Reddy (@iamvishnuv7) May 18, 2023
In reply to that tweet, another user wrote, “She was clearly uncomfortable.” ‘This could be one of the lowest points of cricket telecast in India. BCCI should take some initiative here so there won’t be any such kind of programs again,” wrote another user.
Meanwhile, Star Sports is yet to comment on the matter.
