Commentator Sushil Doshi courted controversy on Thursday during Karnataka and Baroda's Ranji Trophy game by saying that "every Indian should know Hindi as it is our mother tongue".
It was the seventh over of Baroda's second innings when one of the two commentators said: "I liked the fact that Sunil Gavaskar is commentating in Hindi and is giving his valuable inputs in the same language. I also loved it that he called the dot ball as a 'bindi' ball."
To this, the other commentator replied: "Every Indian must know Hindi. This is our mother tongue. There is no bigger language than this."
"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," he added.
According to reports, the commentator who made this statement was Sushil Doshi.
The comment drew flak on social media with several questioning the remark and some even taking offence.
"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," a user slammed on Twitter.
The commentator issued an apology on air for his statement earlier and said that he respects all languaged of India.
"We always respect all the languages which are spoken in this country and if it has hurt anybody my sincere apologies to everybody. Please do not take it in any other way except we were just discussing we love to speak Hindi language, you love to speak your language, India is a country where many languages are spoken and each reason has its own mother tongue and we respect everybodies language," he said.