Cricket

Ganguly, Yuvraj & Gambhir honoured

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly’s comeback to international cricket last year was rewarded when the southpaw bagged the Best Asian Cricketer and the Best Batsman of the year honours at the Castrol Asian Cricket Awards held here.

Indian players, currently participating in the ongoing Asia Cup and on a high after their win over Pakistan on Thursday night, were present in full attendance, with many of them being recipients in various categories themselves.

Sachin Tendulkar, who has been nursing an injury aggravated during the recently concluded Indian Premier League, was adjudged the Best ODI Batsman for his outstanding year in the limited overs version. The master batsman, who has himself been a staunch advocate of backing senior players, also finds himself jostling with the rotation policies in the wake of more and more cricket of late.

Among the current crop of Indian players, opener Gautam Gambhir was named the best batsman in the shortest version of the game, Twenty20, after his scintillating show in last year’s World Cup in South Africa, which India won and also the recently concluded Indian Premier League. Vice-captain Yuvraj Singh also took home an award for his record six sixes in an over in the same competition.

All the four awarded players have something ironic in common, that they are struggling to make it permanently to any one particular form of the game.While Ganguly has been missing from the ODIS, Gambhir and Yuvraj have been struggling to get a permanent spot in the tests. Sachin is the only fixture in both the teams but he has been struggling with his fitness of late.

Tags: castrol asia cricket awards, gautam gambhir, sachin tendulkar, sourav ganguly, yuvraj singh