During the ongoing Ranji Trophy match between Karnataka and Baroda at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, renowned Hindi commentator Sushil Doshi made a controversial on-air statement on Wednesday saying every Indian should learn Hindi as it is our mother tongue.

Doshi’s remark has not gone down well as angry fans have taken to the social media platforms to condemn his statement. While many saw this as an imposition of one particular language, others reminded the commentator that it was ironical of him to say Hindi is our mother tongue in a match involving players whose mother tongue is Kannada and Gujrati.

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The incident happened during the seventh over Baroda’s second innings when one of the commentators said, “I liked the fact that Sunil Gavaskar is commentating in Hindi and is giving his valuable in the same language. I also loved it that he called the dot ball as a bindi ball.”

To which Doshi replied, “Every Indian must know Hindi. This is our mother tongue. There is no bigger language than this.”

He further added, “In fact, I look at those people with a lot of anger who say that we are cricketers still we should talk in Hindi? You are staying in India then you will obviously speak its mother tongue.”

The fans criticised the commentator by sharing the clip of the particular moment and started the hashtag #StopHindiImposition on Twitter.

Did this lunatic commentator just say “Every Indian should know Hindi” ? What on earth do you think you’re ⁦@BCCI⁩ ? Stop imposing Hindi and disseminating wrong messages. Kindly atone. Every Indian need not know Hindi #StopHindiImposition #RanjiTrophy #KARvBRD pic.twitter.com/thS57yyWJx

— Ramachandra.M/ ರಾಮಚಂದ್ರ.ಎಮ್ (@nanuramu) February 13, 2020

Hey you idiots what the hell you’re blabbering in the commentary box, India is not equal to Hindi,have some commonsense while speaking,Hindi is not Rashtrabhasha,@BCCI should sack these clowms from the commentary panel,it’s an insult to non hindi speakers#stopHindiImposition https://t.co/YUq56zoMJH

— Prashanth (@prashanthhr01) February 13, 2020

For the uninitiated, here you go again: India DOES NOT have a national language, and you can’t impose a language or a culture on anyone. If you still do have any doubts, read up on the Constitution and not lousy WhatsApp forwards #StopHindiImposition #RanjiTrophy #KARvBRD https://t.co/Iwv37kW1yA

— Arun Venugopal (@scarletrun) February 13, 2020

There is no national language for India, most of the states in India has their own language!! #stopHindiImposition https://t.co/Sa9VPh0rvi

— Kavin Parameswaran (@Kavin_13111991) February 13, 2020

Hey @BCCI what is this?! Shame. #stopHindiImposition https://t.co/zbXFSqnEGb

— ಯಶಸ್ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು/Yashas (@ILogicianI) February 13, 2020

@BCCI#StopHindiImposition #RespectAllLanguages #UnityInDiversity https://t.co/RKohdRjCiH

— செல்வகுமார் (@dselvakumar9) February 13, 2020

After two days’ play, Karnataka hold the edge over Baroda with a first-innings lead but the latter have staged a good comeback in the second innings. After getting out for an embarrassing score of 65 in first innings, Baroda have taken a lead of 59 runs. Karnataka had scored 233 in their first innings.