Mayanti Langer Binny, the Indian sports presenter, has been a revelation in her field anchoring in the pre and post-match shows. She has hosted global events, including the 2010 FIFA World Cup, 2012 Summer Olympics, and the ICC events – the 2015 World Cup, 2017 Champions Trophy, the 2019 World Cup.
Mayanti Langer is now also one of the TV presenters for the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL).
But everything has not been as hunky-dory for Mayanti in her career. The charming sports anchor was rejected four times from becoming a host of the IPL.
“I got rejected for the IPL four times in a row. Before the 2011 edition, they called and said we have finalized you in the team, the next time we call you it will be about when to shoot the promo. It ended up not being me. They called me back and said, ‘Listen you’ve just done the World Cup, you can’t do this, we need a new face’,” Langer recently told Verve Magazine.
She added: “At a point I did give up, thinking it’s just not to be. Basically, they didn’t want you. It wasn’t that you weren’t good enough. You just weren’t what they were looking for. Any rejection in life is hard, and it’s hard to make peace with, but I made my peace with it. IPL is not in my destiny, cool, let me enjoy it.”
Langer even accepted it to be her destiny, but as they say, life is unpredictable, and one never knows when an opportunity can come knocking at your door. This is exactly what happened with her in 2018 when Star Sports Network grabbed the broadcasting rights of the IPL.
“There was a bit of confusion about how many matches I was going to do. I ended up doing all of them. Not one day off! I remember telling myself, ‘Just shut up and do it, you’ve waited so long for this, you’re finally hosting the IPL, you don’t know if you’ll get this opportunity again!'” she added.
Hosting the IPL was a dream come true for Langer, and she went on to disclose the message that her husband Stuart Binny gave her when she went on to host her first IPL game.
“He knows my journey. He knows it’s the only time in broadcast where I’ve had a lot of setbacks because someone didn’t want me. So I remember him saying ‘you’ve cracked it, enjoy it, this is your moment, make it happen’, and that’s been an amazing part of having him as a partner. His life is so stressful, so many public highs and lows, that he could understand how huge that moment was. And I enjoyed it because he was playing the IPL!”
The 13th season of the IPL is scheduled to bowl out on March 29, and from the same day, fans can see Mayanti hosting the pre and post-match shows on Star Sports and Hotstar app.
