Shubman Gill, Deepti Sharma win best international cricketer at BCCI Awards

The Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) has finally cleared the long overdue backlog of their annual awards. These awards, where the BCCI honours domestic and international performers in both Men’s and Women’s cricket, were stopped due to the pandemic after the 2018-19 season awards. 

Shubman Gill was adjudged the best international cricketer (Men) for the 2022-23 cycle and was given the Polly Umrigar Award. That came largely due to his performance in the ODI format. After scoring 638 runs at an average of 70.88 in 2022, Gill scored 1584 runs at 63.36 in 2023. 

Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah, R Ashwin and Mohammad Shami were given the Polly Umrigar award for 2021-22, 2020-21, and 2019-20, respectively. 

Deepti Sharma bagged Best International Cricketer (Women) for the 2019-20 and 2022-23 seasons in women's cricket. Smriti Mandhana received the same for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. 

Mr. Ravi Shastri receives the prestigious 𝗖𝗼𝗹. 𝗖.𝗞. 𝗡𝗮𝘆𝘂𝗱𝘂 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗔𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 🏆

Many congratulations 👏👏#NamanAwards | @RaviShastriOfc pic.twitter.com/KhvASeWC5w

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 23, 2024

Apart from the performance-based awards (for both the domestic and international cricketers), the BCCI also conferred the coveted Colonel C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award to the dashing wicketkeeper batter Farookh Engineer and Ravi Shastri. 

Engineer, 86, played 46 Tests for India and scored 2611 runs at an average of 31.08. Meanwhile, Ravi Shastri, the left-arm spinner and top-order batter, played 80 Test matches for India. In a career that was curtailed by knee injuries, Shashtri scored at an average of 35.79 and picked 151 Test wickets at 40.96 apiece.  

The BCCI also awarded the Best Umpire in Domestic Cricket award to A. Padmanabhan, Vrinda Rathi, Jayaraman Madangopal, and Rohan Pandit for 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 respectively.