S Viswanadh, TTV Namboori and WS Mani Sundar are not names most Indian cricket followers would recognise, yet all three appeared on the scorecard during India's Asian Games 2026 semifinal against Sri Lanka.
The explanation, as it turns out, is straightforward, and it has nothing to do with a broadcasting mistake.
India won the second semifinal by a margin of 124 runs after setting Sri Lanka a target of 170, but the result was partly overshadowed by the graphics shown by the official broadcaster, Sony Liv.
Once India's innings had ended, in which Ishan Kishan made a superb 80 off 46 balls and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi contributed 38, two names that few viewers had ever heard before were displayed on the screen. The pictures spread rapidly across social media, and the broadcaster drew criticism for what many assumed was a careless error.
Neither name referred to a new player as "TTV Namboori" stood for Tilak Varma, whose full name is Namboori Thakur Tilak Varma, while "WS Mani Sundar" was an abbreviated form of Washington Sundar's full name, in which Mani Sundar is the name of the cricketer's father. In other words, both players were simply listed under the names recorded in their official documents.
A similar instance was noticed before India's innings had finished, when the name of Sanju Samson was replaced by "S Viswanadh" on the scorecard. Viswanath is in fact the actual middle name of Samson, who was born in Trivandrum, so the listing followed the same pattern as the other two.
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Very unique name format at Asian Games! Guess who is S. Vishwanadh & T.T.V Namboori? 🙂 pic.twitter.com/nlLbdix2ft
The use of full names at the Asian Games is not a slip by the broadcaster but a result of the standard registration procedures followed at major multi-sport events.
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) work to official naming policies, under which athletes are generally registered with their legal names as submitted at accreditation, frequently drawn from passport details. This information is then placed in centralised databases used for event operations and broadcasting.
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Bilateral cricket series usually identify players by their familiar names or sporting identities, but a multi-sport event needs one consistent system across many disciplines.
Such an approach keeps television graphics, digital scoreboards and official reports uniform, even if it leaves cricket fans briefly puzzled when a well-known player appears under a name they have never seen in print.
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After India beat Pakistan to win the gold medal in the final of the 2026 Asian Games, Varma took to social media with a post listing the names they had been referred to during the tournament's broadcast.
T.T.V Namboori, W.S Mani Sundar and S. Vishwanadh bringing home the Gold 🥇🤣 pic.twitter.com/viQzCPcDOl
T.T.V Namboori remained unbeaten on 51 runs while S. Vishwanadh managed just two runs. W.S Mani Sundar did not bat, however, posted figures of 2/29 in his four overs.
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Soham Mukherjee is a content producer and writer, with a focus on cricket, football, tennis and Indian sports. His work has appeared in Goal.com previously, where he has covered the Premier League, La Liga, Champions League, FIFA World Cups and Indian football. Armed with an MA (Master's) in Sports Journalism from Symbiosis International University, he knew early on that his future wouldn’t be on the pitch but behind the pen, shaping narratives about the games he adores.
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