National Cricket team captain Paras Khadka has been nominated in the Popular Player of the Year category of the Pulsar Sports Award for the consecutive second year along with footballer Bimal Gharti Magar, volleyball player Saraswati Chaudhary, swimmer Sofia Shah and athlete Yam Sajan Sunwar.
Nepal Sports Journalist Forum (NSJF), the organizer of the annual award, unveiled the nominations of the category on Thursday amidst a press conference.
According to Prakash Timalsina, the coordinator of the player’s selection committee and secretary of NSJF, the players were selected on the basis of their performance, achievement and popularity in the mass level during the year 2070 BS. The winner among them will be declared on June 1 on the basis of number of SMS voting and Facebook likes.
The Sports Award including seven other categories out of which the nominees of male and female player of the year, youth player of the year and coach of the year will be declared later. There will not be nominations for the special, lifetime and para-athlete award and the winner will be declared on June 1, the award day.
The winner of popular, male and female player of the year will be awarded with a Pulsar motorbike and gift hampers while the winner of other categories will be given Rs 50,000 and gift hampers.
Meanwhile, NSJF President Ajay Phuyal and Sajan Subedi, representative of THT live signed the MoU for SMS voting which will be open for May 1 to 31. Four Facebook likes will carry the weightage of one SMS voting.
Khadka, the skipper of the national team, guided the team to ICC World T20 to remain in the limelight throughout the year. He had scored 232 runs in the World T20 Qualifiers including a half century and was listed in top 11 players by cricinfo.com, the famous cricket portal.
Khadka was the leader of the Nepali teams that played ICC World Cup Qualifiers and the ICC World T20. Khadka increased his fan base also through his way to carry himself in front of national and international media.