Gavaskar to receive BCCI's lifetime achievement award

Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar will be conferred the Col C K Nayudu Lifetime Achievement award at the annual BCCI awards function.

The BCCI's Col C K Nayudu Award Committee met in Mumbai on Thursday and decided to confer the honour on the legendary opener, a release from BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale said.

The award comprises a trophy, citation and a cheque for Rs 25 lakh. Gavaskar will receive the honour at the BCCI Awards Ceremony, to be held shortly.

Gavaskar represented India in 125 Tests from 1970-71 to 1986-87, scoring a record 774 runs in his debut series in the West Indies.

He was the first batsman to score 10,000 runs in Tests, and the first to play 100 consecutive Tests. He was the first batsman to score hundreds in each innings of a Test thrice and was the first batsman to surpass Sir Don Bradman's tally of 29 Test centuries.

He led India in 47 Tests and his greatest triumph as captain was India's victory in the World Championship of Cricket, a limited-overs tournament featuring all the then Test-playing nations, in 1984-85.

Post retirement, he became a cricket expert. He was also the chairman of the BCCI's Technical Committee, and the chairman of the ICC's Cricket Committee.

Meanwhile, the committee has also decided to honour seven individuals posthumously with Special Award for their outstanding contribution to Indian cricket.

These include -- Vijay Merchant, Vinoo Mankad, Dattu Phadkar, Vijay Manjrekar, Ghulam Ahmed, M L Jaisimha and Dilip Sardesai -- will receive a trophy and cheque of Rs 15 lakh at the award ceremony.

It has been learnt that the ceremony will take place in Mumbai on November 21, two days before the commencement of the second India-England Test at the Wankhede Stadium.

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