BHUBANESWAR 02-Apr-2012 158
Cuttack and Odisha all-rounder Biplab Samantaray was today selected to receive the 20th Saheed Sporting-Maruti Estate Cricketer of the Year Award 2011-12 for his outstanding performance in this year`s Ranji Trophy Championship. Odisha T-20 captain Samantaray, who accumulated 441 runs, including one century (171 vs UP) and two fifties from the seven Ranji Matches (11 innings) this season, will receive a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and citation.
A medium-pace bowler, Samantaray also achieved modest success in bowling, scalping 12 wickets for 347 runs in this season`s Ranji Trophy Championship. He also helped East Zone win the Duleep Trophy title for the first time. Cuttack all-rounder Samantaray is expected to prove his worth in the IPL for Deccan Chargers, which has signed him for Rs 30 lakhs.
The award was instituted by leading cricket club Saheed Sporting in the year 1992-93 with Maruti India Estate as the sponsor. Past recipients of the coveted award include Ranjib Biswal, Debasis Mohanty, Shiv Sundar Das, Sanjay Raul, Prashant Mohapatra, Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Pravanjan Mullick, P Jayachandra, Sanjay Satpathy, BBCC Mohapatra, Deepak Mangaraj, Basant Mohanty and Dhiraj Singh.
The award for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12 will be conferred on Basant Mohanty and Biplab Samantaray in a function, the date of which will be announced later, said Saheed Sporting secretary Pankaj Patnaik.
