Shubman Gill and Smriti Mandhana were named the best men’s and women’s international cricketers, respectively, at the BCCI Naman Awards 2026 on Saturday.
The Naman Awards 2026 ceremony were held in New Delhi on Sunday, rewarding exceptional performances and feats from the 2024-2025 season.
Established in 2006-07, the BCCI Naman Awards is an annual felicitation ceremony, where the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the country’s governing body for the sport, honours standout performers from the preceding years.
The Best International Cricketer of the Year (men), also called the Polly Umrigar Award after the legendary former Indian cricketer, and the Best International Cricketer of the Year (women), are among the top honours at the event.
Shubman Gill, India’s Test and ODI cricket team captain, received the Polly Umrigar Award for a second time. He scored 983 runs in nine Tests, including 754 runs in five matches at an average of 75.40 with four centuries against England. He also made 490 runs in 11 ODI matches.
Meanwhile, Smriti Mandhana received the Best International Cricketer (women) award for the second year in a row and the fifth time in her career.
A key member of India’s women’s ODI World Cup-winning campaign last year, Smriti Mandhana was the tournament’s leading scorer with 434 runs. She also set a record for the most ODI hundreds in a year with five in 2025.
Shafali Verma was honoured with the Jagmohan Dalmiya Trophy for Best Woman Cricketer (Senior Domestic One Day) for the 2024-25 season.
ODI World Cup-winner Roger Binny and Rahul Dravid were bestowed with the Col. C. K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award. Mithali Raj received the BCCI Lifetime Achievement Award for Women.
A member of India’s historic 1983 World Cup winning team, Binny’s contribution to the game has spanned decades as a player, mentor and administrator.
Binny finished as the highest wicket-taker of the 1983 World Cup and also served as coach of the Indian Under-19 team which won the World Cup in 2000. He later served as a national selector and was the BCCI president from 2022 to 2025.
Dravid accumulated over 24,000 international runs. Following his playing career, Dravid served as Head of Cricket at the National Cricket Academy and guided India’s U19 team to the World Cup title in 2018. Under his coaching, the senior Indian cricket team won the T20 World Cup 2024 title.
Mithali Raj, meanwhile, had an international career spanning more than two decades.
As the highest run scorer in women’s ODIs with 7805 runs at an average of 50.68, Mithali Raj “transformed the perception of women’s cricket in India,” the BCCI said in a statement. Under her captaincy, India reached two Women’s World Cup finals.
During the Naman Awards 2026, all five ICC trophy-winning Indian teams were felicitated. This included the men’s team that won the Champions Trophy in 2025 and the T20 World Cup in 2026 and the women’s team that won their maiden ODI World Cup in 2025. The other two are the teams that won the men’s U19 World Cup 2026 and the women’s U19 World Cup 2025.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/bcci-naman-awards-2026-winners-list
