"Srilankan Muttiah Murlitharan holds the CEAT International Cricketer of the Year award as he stands along with Bollywood star Aamir Khan and Vice Chairman of CEAT, Mr. Harsh Goenka at the 7th International CEAT Cricket Rating Awards ceremony held at the Police Gymkhana, Marine Drive, Mumbai on 28th January 2003"

Cricket and Bollywood stars adorn the
7th Annual CEAT International Cricket Rating Awards

Kapil, Sourav, Aamir, Sachin win awards

The 7th International Ceat Cricket Rating Awards ceremony, held today evening at the Police Gymkhana grounds in Mumbai, was a star-studded affair with crème de la crème from the cricket, bollywood, and corporates making their appearance at the event. Some of the well-known faces that dotted the guest list were Clive Lloyd, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Ajit Wadekar, Saurav Ganguly, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Aamir Khan, Anil Kapoor, Tina Ambani, Sunil Shetty and Mana, Dimple Kapadia, Poonam Dhillon.

The hosts for the show were Cyrus Broacha and Malaika Arora who presented the entire show in an interesting manner.

The ceremony saw a mélange of various entertainment acts, on a spectacular set with a giant cricket ball and laser lights, by Bollywood stars which left the 5000 plus audience mesmerized.

The show started with a brilliant song and drama in which Malaika Arora, who impersonated the World Cup trophy, being chased by dancers with costumes representing the twelve participating international cricket teams. Saif Ali Khan tried his hands on playing cricket in an entertaining act, which was followed by a scintillating performance by Shilpa Shetty, who was shown looking for her dream lover in the cricket team, Sachin. Javed Jaffrey once again made the crowd roar with laughter, in a unique rendition of a test match commentary act, presented in his inimitable style.

During the ceremony, twelve awards were given for best performance in the game of cricket to personalities such as Roger Binny and Sharda Ugra for the Ceat Best Coach Award and Ceat Best Sports Media Personality respectively. Bishen Singh Bedi was awarded the CEAT Lifetime Achievement Award. The CEAT International Team of the Year Award went to Australia.

The highlight of the awards was the presentation of the ICICI Lombard CEAT International Cricketer of the Century award to Kapil Dev, who has scored the highest CEAT Cricket Rating Points in the last century. Felicitating him were cricket maestro Sunil Gavaskar, RPG Chairman Harsh Goenka and film star Sunil Shetty amidst glowing tributes to his illustrious career that saw India’s victory at the World Cup and some of the most scintillating individual performances in the history of the game.

The audience was hysterical when the two special awards were declared – CEAT Greatest Influence to the Game of Cricket award, which was presented to Aamir Khan for the success of Lagaan and the CEAT Outstanding Performance as the Leader of the Indian Cricket Team award, which was presented to Sourav Ganguly, in association with Provogue.

The grand finale of the evening was the presentation of the CEAT International Cricketer of the Year Award to Srilankan, Muttiah Muralitharan by Mr. Harsh Goenka, Vice Chairman, Ceat Ltd. followed by a live rendition of the chart busting popular song “Hum ko to hai pura yakin” by nine singers – Sunidhi Chauhan, Sudesh Bhosle, KK, Shaan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan & Sagarika,, Shweta Pandit, and Shraddha Pandit. The crowd gave a standing ovation to the singers on stage and cheered the Indian Cricket Team for a great victory in the World Cup.

The CEAT International Cricket Rating, now into its eighth year, comprises a Player rating and a Team rating. Performances of cricketers and cricket teams in Tests and one-day internationals from 1st May to 30th April are tracked and rated through a comprehensive & easy to understand points system. The player and team that top the rating are declared the CCR International Cricketer of the Year and the CCR International Team of the Year respectively.

Previous winners of the CEAT International Cricketer of the Year Award are Brian Lara (1995-96), Venkatesh Prasad (1996-97), Sanath Jayasuriya (1997-98), Jacques Kallis (1998-99), Sourav Ganguly (1999-00) and Muttiah Muralitharan (2000-01). The CEAT International Cricket Team Award has been won by Pakistan (1996-97), Australia (1997-98 and 1999-00) and South Africa (1998-99 and 2000-01).

The Official Partners of the 7th International CEAT Cricket Rating Awards are: