Akshaye Khanna & The Voice of Indian Cricket: A Family Secret

Bollywood star Akshaye Khanna, son of Vinod Khanna, has a fascinating hidden cricket legacy. He is the grandson of legendary radio commentator AFS Talyarkhan, India’s ‘voice of cricket,’ known for pioneering cricket commentary and iconic sports writing.”

Akshaye Khanna-AFS Talyarkhan (Image Source: Google)

The Bollywood film Dhurandhar is one of the success stories of the year 2025. Akshaye Khanna is flavour of the time, and a lot is being written about his film background as he is son of Vinod Khanna, who was a famous film star in his time. An almost unknown fact about Akshaye Khanna is that he has a very strong cricket connection also. He is the grandson of India's one of the most reputed and world-wide famous cricket commentator AFS Talyarkhan (popularly known as AFST or Bobby Talyarkhan). The present generation of cricket lovers might not have heard his name, but he has a significant place in the history of cricket broadcast in India, and many believed that AFS Talyarkhan was the ‘voice of cricket on All India Radio.’

First of all, about the relationship: Akshaye Khanna is related to the Talyarkhan family through his mother, Geetanjali (Vinod Khanna’s first wife) and Ardeshir Furdorji Sohrabji "Bobby" Talyarkhan was his maternal grandfather. He belonged to the Parsi community. It was in the late 1960s when Vinod Khanna had joined his college’s theatre group where he met the love of his life, Geetanjali Talyarkhan. Geetanjali was a model and came from a family of lawyers and businessmen.

AFST was a radio commentator and one of the pioneers who made cricket commentary popular in India, often called India's first radio cricket commentator. Born in 1897, AFS Talyarkhan, started his commentator career with a match between Parsis and Muslims played at the famous Esplanade Maidan, Mumbai in 1934 in Quadrangular tournament for AIR. Then for the next few decades his name remained associated with radio commentary as well as sharp and cricket writings. His column on sports, ‘Take it from me’ (later named 'Knock Out') in the tabloid Blitz was famous for its hard-hitting, racket-busting approach in the investigative tone. The column, always printed on the top right-hand corner of the last page, always had his photo, with a beard and pipe.

A unique thing was that in spite of being a radio commentator (with no scope of pause), he could speak all day without rest. ‘His self-control was superhuman, for he would speak without interruptions (except for lunch and tea),’ writes Ram Guha in his book A Corner of a Foreign Field. He used to be alone in the commentary box and never commentated with others. In other words, he disliked sharing the microphone and did the commentaries all by himself throughout the day. To cover the 1948-49 India vs. West Indies Test series, when AIR insisted on a 3-member commentator panel, he retired and walked out of the commentary box forever. On special request, when India toured Pakistan for the first time, in 1954-55 he returned to the box as well as became an end-of-day presenter when England toured India in 1972-73.

He was so good in describing the action that listeners felt that they were watching the proceedings inside the stadium. During those days hockey was India’s most popular sport, and the Indian hockey team was acknowledged as the best in the world. On the other hand, India’s record was not so good in cricket. Even then, Talyarkhan’s cricket commentary drew the people towards cricket.

He had his own unique style. For example, whenever a famous batsman would take his first run, AFST would say ‘only 99 to go for his century.’ Harsha Bhogle says that ‘I wonder if that (AFST stories heard from his father) planted a seed in me to try and become a commentator too!’

AFST knew that he has a unique style of writing and people love that. Harsh Bhogle has a story of the days when he was with the Sportsworld (a weekly published from Kolkata), ‘We asked him to write a column for Sportsworld and he said he wanted a payment of Rs 400 only,’ as he was so eager to write. He wrote a column for Mumbai tabloid Mid-Day also till he passed away on July 13, 1990, on cricket, racing, hockey, football and boxing that he uniquely signed off with the line ‘Do you get me Steve?’ He was a debonair man who drove a red sports model MG. He appeared in a newspaper ad for Murphy Radio also.

Those who saw him doing commentary, remember that he could do commentary for all 5 days of a Test all alone. A whiskey bottle was placed at the table; he would take a few sips and would start commenting and would do the same non-stop for 5 days (except lunch & tea interval) as he hated to share mic and would love to do commentary all by himself. Besides cricket, he also commented on hockey and football.