Hottest female anchors in IPL

Cricket was for long considered the bastion of male, from players, administrators to commentators and anchors. However, things started to change during the 2003 cricket World Cup when Mandira Bedi, wearing low-cut ‘noodle strap’ blouses, presented the Extraa Innings. With little or zero knowledge of cricket, Mandira managed to get the eyeballs, thanks to her dressing style. The reasons given for having Mandira on the show was to increase female viewership. But what the show managed to do was get some cricket-bashers interested as well.

Mandira wasn’t considered in IPL 2008, but she was in demand when the tournament was shifted to South Africa next year for political reasons. "I guess there were some new strategies because of which I was not made part of the (first) IPL," Mandira was quoted as saying.

Mandira Bedi can be credited for bringing glamour to cricket. After Mandira, lot of small-time models such as Shonali Nagrani and Lekha Washington took to cricket shows to get the exposure and took it as a ladder to find foothold in film and television industry. Shonali and Lekha were the on-field anchors for the first season of IPL.

However, from the third edition onwards, known faces in TV such as VJ and model Archana Vijaya, model and singer Shibani Dandekar started hosting the cash-rich T20 event. For the current season of IPL, Rochelle Maria Rao, Miss India International 2012, and Karishma Kotak, a Big Boss contestant, are the female anchors along with male co-hosts Samir Kochhar and Gaurav Kapoor.

Over the years, the quality of the female anchors has improved as they seem to have learnt from the mistakes of their predecessors. Today, you do not have Mandira Bedi asking Charu Sharma to explain Duckworth-Lewis method. Instead, female anchors tactfully avoid using cricket terminology and tend to ask questions that are of little relevance to cricket.

The best example being a female anchor asking Mumbai Indians’ Dwayne Smith if he had found sufficient time to do some shopping. Here are few of them which you would like to read for a few laughs. Karun Chandhok, car racer, tweeted on a question about the noise levels at the MA Chidambaram Stadium – Interviewer at #IPL match to me yesterday “Have you ever heard sound like this at a sporting event ?”….Clearly never been to a car race !!. Andrew McDonald was asked who was taller: Gayle or him. And Daniel Vettori about how tough it is to be a pacer.

In 2009, Mandira returned on popular demand to the official broadcaster Sony Max to present the sideline interviews and present the special IPL shows. She even presented the coverage of the 2010 Indian Premier League cricket on British channel ITV. But pregnancy and age got her sidelined from subsequent editions.

Mandira became a household name as the lead actor of the popular serial Shanti in 1994. She went on do small roles in films such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. She became a known commodity after anchoring in cricket shows

Before anchoring the first IPL season, Lekha Washington was a VJ on SS Music. She hosted the popular show PCO and later Connect in 2006.

Lekha Washington is a qualified filmmaker from NID, Ahemdabad. She began her career as a theatre artiste. Lekha has acted in a couple of Tamil movies - Kettayan and Jayamkondaan.

Lekha also hosted the Canadian T20 on international television. She became famous just two months later after she hosted the IPL 2008 along with Ajay Jadeja. She is seen here with CSK's Makhaya Ntini in IPL 2008.

Shonali Nagrani was one of the hot female anchors in the first season of IPL. Shonali won the Miss India International in 2003 and was one of the Top 5 Femina Miss India. She was a runner up in Miss International (2003).

She even hosted Popcorn on Zoom TV and Great Indian laughter Challenge on Star One. Other work includes co-host of 2010 T20 World Cup show on ESPN-Star Sports. She also hosted Cricket World Cup matches in South Africa.

Shonali Nagrani was also seen in the fifth season of the reality television show Big Boss. She has done supporting roles in Hindi films.

A model and singer, Shibani Dandekar co-hosted Extraa Innings along with Archana Vijaya on Sony Max for IPL 2011. A non-resident Indian from Australia, Shibani claimed in an interview to be a follower of cricket and will be on the ground to bring out the entertainment in cricket.

In an interview, Shibani credited Mandira for opening the avenue for anchoring cricket shows to women. Fresh from hosting IPL season 2011, she also went on to host the finals of the Celebrity Cricket League that year.

Sister to popular anchor Anusha Dandekar, Shibani had set her eyes on Bollywood. But success has eluded her. She also opened a band named DMajor with her sisters anchor Anusha and Apeksha.

Before being an anchor for Extraa Innings in IPL 2011, Archana Vijaya has a good body of work to bank on. She has hosted shows on the Neo cricket channel before she made her foray in IPL. The beauty claimed she was not a cricket enthusiast until she started hosting the cricket shows.

Before anchoring for cricket-based shows, Archana was a VJ on Channel V and hosted season 2 of Get Gorgeous in 2005. She also hosted Channel V’s other shows such as Freedom Express 1 and 2 before she joined Neo Sports to host Tour Diary.

After her stint with IPL 5, Archana joined Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Season 5 as a participant which aired on Colors TV on 16 June 2012.

Rochelle Maria Rao is co-hosting IPL 2013 with Karishma Kotak along with two other male anchors –Samir Kochhar and Gaurav Kapoor. She makes her television debut with this season of IPL.

Rochelle Maria Rao competed in the fifth Pantaloons Femina Miss India South pageant in January 2012 where she was first runner up. She lost the title to Shamata Anchan.

Rochelle Maria Rao also participated at Femina Miss India and emerged as the Femina Miss India International 2012 winner. She also represented India at Miss International 2012 pageant held in October 2012.

Karishma Kotak, the other female co-hosts of IPL 2013, was last seen as one of the contestant in Bigg Boss 6. She had earlier been a presenter for a TV show called Spa Diaries, which was targeted to high-end international audiences.

Karishma has acted in a few music videos, including one in 2004 called 'Me Against Myself' by British singer-songwriter Jay Sean. Her next appearance in a music video was for Sonu Nigam and Sapna Mukherjee's track Madbhari in 2006.

Karishma made her debut as an actress with the Telugu film, Shankar Dada Zindabad, which was released in July, 2007. The film was a remake of Lage Raho Munna Bhai.