Gill, Shastri to be honoured at BCCI Awards

Shubman Gill at a practice session at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Former India all-rounder and head coach Ravi Shastri will be honoured with BCCI’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Shubman Gill will be presented with Cricketer of the Year award following a memorable 12 months when he became the fastest to cross the 2000-run mark in ODIs and also scored five hundreds in the format.

“He (Shastri) has been chosen for the honour while Gill will be awarded the cricketer of the year,” said a BCCI official.

The BCCI awards will be held for the first time since 2019 and both India and England teams are expected to be in attendance ahead of the first Test beginning on January 25.

Shastri, 61, represented India in 80 Tests and 150 ODIs. After retirement, he made a name for himself in the broadcasting world.

He also donned the coaching hat twice for the national team, first as a team director from 2014 to 2016 before returning to the team as head coach with captain Virat Kohli until the T20 World Cup in 2021.

The highlight of his tenure was the back-to-back Test series win in Australia. However, India could not win an ICC title when Shastri and Kohli were in charge.

India also reached the WTC final when Shastri was around but came short against New Zealand in the final. In 2019, India reached the semifinals of the ODI World Cup.

After his farewell event in the UAE in 2021, Shastri had said that he could not be more proud of the team.

“The quality of cricket this team has played over the last five years across all formats, the performances are there for everyone to see. When you perform in that fashion, when you go across the globe, across all formats and beat teams, then you know you’re part of one great cricket team,” he had said.

“I’m not saying a great cricket team, India – I’m saying one of the great cricket teams in the history of the game, because if you look at those kind of performances, they don’t happen often.”