MUMBAI: Sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports will be telecasting live the much-anticipated Indian leg of the four-test India Pakistan hockey series. And continuing its efforts towards increasing Hindi language content on its channels, the entire hockey series will telecast be in Hindi.

The sports network also announced special programming around the hockey series. ESS has signed former Indian hockey star Harinder Singh as an expert commentator for the series.

ESS' efforts to showcase Hindi programming started during the Euro 2004 soccer tournament and were re-introduced as a full-fledged Hindi programming initiative during the IndianOil Asia Cup.

Both initiatives resulted in an increase in viewership for ESS, and the broadcaster is expecting a similar result in case of this high-profile hockey series as well, a company release states.

ESS will be telecasting a 30-minute pre-match and post match analysis show for all the matches. There will also be a reporter at each venue that will bring special interviews and provide the latest updates from the team bench, the release adds.

The shows will be hosted by well known ESS presenter Darain Shahidi along with Harinder Singh. Partho Ghosh will commentate along with Harinder Singh for the live telecast.

According to the release, the telecast of the series ties in to ESS' plans of developing hockey in India. As part of this effort, ESS, along with IHF, launched the Indian Premier Hockey League earlier this year. ESS and Leisure Sports Management (LSM) have worked closely with the IHF to develop the league launched with an objective of developing and popularizing hockey in the country. ESS has the telecast rights for the hockey league for the next 10 years.

Schedule of the Indo-Pak Hockey Matches on ESPN: