For Anand Mahindra, Malayalam Commentary of FIFA World Cup Beats English, Hindi

New Delhi: Why go for the usual English commentary of the FIFA World Cup when you can have it in Malayalam!

As a clip of Malayalam commentary of the spectacular Spain vs Portugal match went viral on social media, it caught the attention of Anand Mahindra, Executive Chairman of the Mahindra Group who says Malayalam football commentators are far more amusing than their Hindi and English counterparts.

Mahindra in a tweet on Saturday, called English and Hindi football commentators "tame" in comparison to that of Malayalam and that he is switching to watching the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Malayalam, despite not knowing the Dravidian language.

The Executive Chairman in a tweet posted on Saturday said, "Ok that’s it. I’m switching to this channel with commentary in Malayalam. No, I don’t understand the language but I don’t need to—these guys are so pumped up they make the English & Hindi commentators sound tame!"

Along with the tweet, Mahindra also shared a short video of Cristiano Ronaldo’s third goal against Spain on Friday's match, but with Malayalam commentary.

Poking fun at mainstream English and Hindi commentary, the 63-year-old businessman said that the Malayalam commentators were so “pumped up” that they made their English and Hindi counterparts ‘sound tame’.

Anand Mahindra had previously owned the Mumbai-based Mahindra United Football Club, which played in I-League’s first division. The Club shut down at the end of the 2009-10 season.

Earlier on Saturday, Mahindra had tweeted on the Argentina versus Iceland match, where he said, “Groaning about the state of Indian football isn’t new; it’s a national pastime. But nothing’s made our sad state more stark than seeing Iceland,a nation with a population smaller than some suburbs of Mumbai,in the cup&even holding their own against Argentina...”

A national media network is broadcasting the FIFA World Cup 2018 in the Indian sub-continent, in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam, besides English. The move behind showing matches in 5 vernacular languages, besides English, is to accommodate the footbal fans in those parts of India where the game is more popular, such as West Bengal, Kerala, Goa and the Northeast.