The Board of Control for Cricket in India announced on Thursday that Indian cricket skipper Virat Kohli will receive the Polly Umrigar Award for the best international cricketer (2016-17 and 2017-18) at the BCCI Awards (Naman) to be held in Bengaluru on Tuesday, June 12, 2018. The Delhi batsman, who has been in prolific form across format for India, will be given the award on the basis of his brilliant show in the past two seasons.

The BCCI Awards recognizes and honours the top domestic and international cricketers across all age groups. While the Indian board will give the award to Kohli in the men’s category, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana – two of India’s in-form cricketers in the female category, are set to be maiden recipients of the award for best international cricketer (women) for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons respectively.

On the occasion, Mr. Vinod Rai, Chairman, CoA, said, “I congratulate all the winners of the BCCI Annual Awards. The last two years have been fabulous for Indian Cricket with both the men and women’s teams doing very well. We are proud of their achievements and this is our small way of acknowledging their on-field efforts.”

Ms. Diana Edulji, who is a member of the CoA, said, “This year we will be presenting awards for the past two seasons and it is going to be a big occasion ahead of the historic Test against Afghanistan. For the first time, an award category for the best International Cricketer (Woman) has been introduced and it is a step in the right direction.”

BCCI Acting President, Mr. CK Khanna also commented on the occasion saying, “The BCCI Annual Awards is an occasion where former greats of the game, the present generation and the stars of tomorrow come under one roof. For BCCI, it is an opportunity to show its gratitude towards cricketers who enrich this game with their skills and hard work.”

Mr. Rahul Johri, CEO, BCCI also lauded the winners as he said, “Every year we have champion players delivering champion performances. Awards help boost a player's confidence and we only hope that we get more noteworthy performances in the season to follow.”

The BCCI also raised prize money for nine categories of winners (from a total of 18) by Rs. 1 lakh, with the previous being INR 50,000.