Four cricketers and coach Roy Dias are on for the awards at the NSJF LG Player of the Year Awards 2063 to be held at the Birendra International Convention Center (BICC) on August 20.
Dias, Khadka, Pandey & Karki: Up for NSJF LG PoY Awards
National captain Binod Das, who won the Player of the Year Male Awards last year is the only cricketer nominated for the category. He was nominated as he led Nepal to the ACC Premier League victory with 20 wickets in 4 matches and also led his hometeam Birgunj to the firstever national championship crown.
Current U-19 captain Paras Khadka, U-15 heroes Subendu Pandey and Krishna Karki have been nominated for the Player of the Year Youth category while Dias, who won the Coach of the Year award last year, has been nominated this year too.
Organizing Nepal Sports Journalists Forum (NSJF) announced the nominees for the four categories on Thursday. The players were selected by a committee headed by NSJF secretary Mahesh Acharya and the members included Treasurer Himesh Bajracharya, executive members Binod Pandey, Prajeet Shakya and co-ordinator of foreign relations committee Ujjwal Acharya.
The nomination has otherwise been dominated by the medalists of the Tenth South Asian Games (SAG). Among 20 nominees announced, 13 are picked up for the performance in the SAG held in Sri Lanka while five are from cricket and one each from football and golf.
The three crickets will compete for the PoY Youth title with Ayesha Shakya of taekwondo, the SAG silver and Asiad bronze winner and football Nirajan Malla. Dias is pitted up along with Kwan Hung Jong of taekwondo, Hira Singh Dangol of karate, Gopal Shrestha of wushu and Tilak Bahadur Rawat of weightlifting. While Dias has been picked for his team’s success in ACC Premier League and ACC U-15 Cup, all others have been picked for their performance in SAG.
Cricket swept the awards last year with Binod Das winning Player of the Year Male and Kanishka Chaugai winning the PoY Youth along with Dias who won Coach of the Year. The awards winners received Rs. 10,000 cash and a LG Dynamite mobile set along with gift vouchers from ATTSH.
(Edited to add Binod Das)