Commentary of matches played by Team India, known as the Blue Tigers, will be offered in English, Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada and Malayalam. Star promises fans the best of the football action both on and off the field with special programming to accompany live action and analysis.

Expert opinion will be offered from the venue as well as from specially designed in-house studios for the tournament. Paul Masefield will accompany John Helm for English commentary from the venue. India’s AFC Asian Cup 2011 squad members Renedy Singh and Mehrajuddin Wadoo will join them as they share their expert opinions during the English broadcast from the studio.

The first ever broadcast of a major football tournament involving India in six languages will feature For Tamil viewers Raman Vijayan will provide commentary, while Jo Paul Ancheri will provide Malayalam, and Debjit Ghosh and Rajat Ghosh Dastidar will commentate in Bengali. In addition, NS Manju, who represented India in AFC Asian Cup 2011, will be a part of Star Sports Kannada-speaking broadcast team during the AFC Asian Cup 2018.

The Indian national football team has seen massive growth in support on the back of some strong performances at the international stage, which saw India breaking into the top 100 in FIFA rankings and hosting major international tournaments such as the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017, Hero Intercontinental Cup and other international games.

The Blue Tigers will look to overcome challenges from hosts UAE, Bahrain and Thailand in the group stage in order to advance to the Round of 16 – a feat they have achieved only once in the history of the tournament in 1964, when the team ended as the runners up of the tournament.

Star India will broadcast all the games from the tournament live across the Star Sports network and on its digital platform Hotstar.

Team India will play its first match against Thailand on 6 January 2019.