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The BCCI Naman Awards 2026 were held in New Delhi on March 15 and Shubman Gill was named the Best International Cricketer for India men's for the second time in his career. The evening also saw five ICC trophy winning Indian teams felicitated on the same stage for the first time in the award's history.
It was that kind of year for Indian cricket. But the award that carries the most weight, the one that has been given out since 2006 and the one whose winners read like a map of Indian cricket's greatest modern players, is the Polly Umrigar Award. Here is what it is, who has won it and what Shubman Gill and Smriti Mandhana winning actually means.
What the Polly Umrigar Award is and the man it is named after
The award is formally called the Best International Cricketer of the Year for men and is named after Pahlan Ratanji Polly Umrigar, one of Indian cricket's original record breakers.
Polly Umrigar was the first player from India to score a Test double century, making 223 against New Zealand in 1955, and was among the first Indian batters to be recognised as genuinely world class at a time when Indian cricket was still finding its place in the game. Naming the best international cricketer award after him is the BCCI's way of connecting modern excellence to the foundations that built everything that came after.
The award has been given out every year since 2006-07 as part of the BCCI Naman Awards, the board's annual felicitation ceremony to honour standout performers from the preceding season. The winner receives a trophy, a citation and a cash prize of Rs 15 lakh. It covers performances across all three formats in international cricket and is decided on the basis of the preceding season rather than a calendar year.
From Sachin to Kohli to Gill the full history of the award
The first winner in 2006-07 was Sachin Tendulkar. The standard was set at the highest possible level from the very beginning. Tendulkar won it again in 2009-10 and between those two wins the award went to Virender Sehwag in 2007-08 and Gautam Gambhir in 2008-09, two players who defined Indian cricket's most aggressive batting era. Rahul Dravid won it in 2010-11 in what turned out to be the golden generation's final bow before the next era took over completely.
Then came Virat Kohli and the award essentially became his for a decade. Kohli won it five times, in 2011-12, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. He is the only player to have won it three years in a row and his five titles remain the record for the most wins by any player. His period of dominance with this award maps almost exactly onto the period when India became the most powerful batting side in world cricket across all three formats.
The post-Kohli era brought something different. Jasprit Bumrah became a three-time winner in 2018-19, 2021-22 and 2023-24 and broke the batter-heavy tradition that had defined the award from the beginning.
A fast bowler winning India's best international cricketer award three times in five years said everything about how the game had shifted and how Bumrah had become something the sport had rarely seen before. Ravichandran Ashwin won it in 2012-13 and 2020-21.
Mohammed Shami won it in 2019-20. Bhuvneshwar Kumar won it in 2013-14. The full list of winners since 2006 reads like a complete history of Indian cricket's most important players across two decades.
What Shubman Gill winning it twice means
Shubman Gill won the award for the 2022-23 season and has now won it again for the 2024-25 season. Shubman Gill is 26 years old. Winning it twice before the age of 27 puts him in the company of a very small group and the manner in which he won it this time makes the statement even clearer.
Shubman Gill's performance in India's five Test series in England was the central reason for the award. Shubman Gill scored 754 runs in ten innings at an average of 75.40 with four centuries and a highest score of 269.
Shubman Gill finished as the highest run-getter in the world for 2025 with 983 runs in nine matches at an average of 70.21. Shubman Gill also scored an unbeaten 101 against Bangladesh in India's opening Champions Trophy match and ended the tournament with 188 runs at an average of 47.
This is also the first time since Kohli in 2017-18 that the active Test and ODI captain has won the Polly Umrigar award. That matters because it confirms something that the selectors and the BCCI had already been signalling for a while. The Rohit and Kohli era has officially transitioned into the Shubman Gill era and this award is the clearest public acknowledgement of that shift.
Shubman Gill said after receiving the award. "Firstly thank you to the BCCI for recognising me with this award. Many greats and legends of Indian cricket have received it before so it is a huge honour for me to be here. What we as an Indian cricket group were able to achieve last year was truly tremendous. Five ICC trophies, something I do not think has ever happened before."
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Smriti Mandhana's fifth win and the record she now shares with Virat Kohli
While Shubman Gill was the headline on the men's side Smriti Mandhana made the bigger historical statement on the evening. By winning her fifth Best International Cricketer award for women. Smriti Mandhana has matched Virat Kohli's record for the most BCCI Player of the Year titles in history across both men's and women's cricket.
Five wins. Same as Kohli. In a ceremony that was supposed to be about celebrating Indian cricket's greatest ever year in terms of ICC trophies the most significant individual record of the night belonged to Mandhana.
The numbers behind her fifth win are extraordinary. Smriti Mandhana scored 1703 international runs in 2025 including 1362 in ODIs which is the most by any woman in a single calendar year and made her the first batter in women's ODI history to score 1000 runs in a calendar year.
Smriti Mandhana scored 434 runs in nine matches at the Women's ODI World Cup to finish as India's leading run-scorer and the second-highest overall as India won their maiden world title. Smriti Mandhana also hit a 50-ball century against Australia in New Delhi which was the fastest ODI hundred by an Indian batter, men or women, surpassing Virat Kohli's 52-ball effort.
Smriti Mandhana said after collecting the award. "I mean I can talk about this award but I cannot really speak about individual achievements without mentioning the team. It has truly been a brilliant year. So thank you and thank you to the BCCI for supporting women's cricket the way you have. I hope we continue to reach even greater heights."
The full list of Polly Umrigar Award winners since 2006
2006-07: Sachin Tendulkar. 2007-08: Virender Sehwag. 2008-09: Gautam Gambhir. 2009-10: Sachin Tendulkar. 2010-11: Rahul Dravid. 2011-12: Virat Kohli. 2012-13: Ravichandran Ashwin. 2013-14: Bhuvneshwar Kumar. 2014-15: Virat Kohli.
2015-16: Virat Kohli. 2016-17: Virat Kohli. 2017-18: Virat Kohli. 2018-19: Jasprit Bumrah. 2019-20: Mohammed Shami. 2020-21: Ravichandran Ashwin. 2021-22: Jasprit Bumrah. 2022-23: Shubman Gill. 2023-24 Jasprit Bumrah. 2024-25 Shubman Gill.
Nineteen seasons. Nineteen winners. Ten different players. The list is Indian cricket's most honest account of who mattered most in each era and right now at the top of that list for the second time is a 26 year old from Punjab who is only just getting started.
