The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the Naman Award 2026. This ceremony will be held on March 15 in New Delhi. During this, India’s Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill will be honored with BCCI’s prestigious ‘Cricketer of the Year’ award. The ‘Cricketer of the Year’ award is also known as the ‘Polly Umrigar Cricket of the Year’ award. At the same time, among women, Smriti Mandhana will be awarded the Best Female Cricketer of the Year for the fifth time in her career.
Gill will match Sachin-Ashwin
Shubman has won this award for the second time. Earlier in the year 2023 also he was honored with this award. By winning this award for the second time, Shubman will be on par with Sachin Tendulkar and Ravichandran Ashwin. Both of them also won this award twice. Only Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah have been honored with this award more times than these three. Kohli has been BCCI’s Cricketer of the Year five times, while Bumrah has won this award thrice. 26-year-old Shubman performed brilliantly in Test and ODI cricket last year i.e. 2025. Although, he did not get a place in the Indian team that won the T20 World Cup recently, but his performance in the remaining two formats was very strong. Shubman batted brilliantly in Test cricket in 2025 and scored 983 runs. This included 754 runs in the series against England played on their soil, which shows his excellent form. His average in the Test series against England was more than 70 and he played many important innings.
Strong form in ODI and IPL also
Gill also performed well in ODI cricket. He scored a total of 490 runs, including 188 in India’s Champions Trophy-winning campaign. If all formats are taken together, Gill scored a total of 1,764 runs last year, which included seven centuries and three half-centuries. His average was around 49. Apart from this, Gill’s bat played well in IPL also. While playing for Gujarat Titans and captaining the team, he scored 650 runs and batted at an average of around 50.
Lifetime Achievement Award to Binny, Dravid and Mithali
BCCI has named former Indian players Roger Binny and Rahul Dravid as Colonel C.K. It has been decided to honor Naidu with Lifetime Achievement Award. Whereas, among women, this award will be given to Mithali Raj. Binny has also been the former President of BCCI, while during Dravid’s coaching tenure, India won the 2024 T20 World Cup title. Mithali is also being honored for her contribution to women’s cricket in India.
Mhatre-Harsh Dubey will get honour.
Mumbai’s Ayush Mhatre, who won the Under-19 World Cup title under his captaincy, will receive the best all-rounder award in the domestic limited overs tournament. This award is known as Lala Amarnath Award. At the same time, Vidarbha’s Harsh Dubey has been chosen the best all-rounder for his excellent performance in the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season.
BCCI will honor the World Cup winning team
BCCI will honor the Suryakumar Yadav-led Indian team, which recently won the T20 World Cup, during the Naman Awards. Not only this, during the Naman Awards, all the five Indian teams who have recently won the ICC Trophy will be honoured. During this, apart from the men’s T20 team, the Indian team, the winner of the Women’s World Cup 2025, the winner of the Champions Trophy 2025, the winner of the Under-19 World Cup 2026 and the winner of the Women’s Under-19 T20 World Cup 2025, will be honoured.
