ESPNcricinfo Awards 2013
A night to remember
The seventh edition of the ESPNcricinfo Awards opened with a media interaction with former India captain Rahul Dravid and former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Actor Rahul Bose, who is also a cricket enthusiast, interacted with Dravid•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
The discussion was followed by the announcement of the award winners: Shikhar Dhawan was selected by the jury as the winner of the best Test innings of 2013, while Mitchell Johnson's demolition of England in Adelaide won him the best bowling performance award•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
In between the award annoucements, Andy Zaltzman had the audience in stitches during his two rounds of comic stand-up acts•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Speaking after receiving the award, Tendulkar said the ICC needs to organise more Tests, if it wants the format to survive. He also added that no player should be forced to play a Test match•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
After the formalities were over, the two former India team-mates got together for a chat•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
The awards night brought a number of eminent personalities together: former cricketers, administrators, journalists and even actors•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Among one of the special guests was ESPNcricinfo co-founder Badri Seshadri•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
The corresponding ODI awards went to Rohit Sharma and Shahid Afridi •ESPNcricinfo Ltd
ESPNcricinfo, to mark 20 years of its existence, announced an award for the Cricketer of the Generation. Rahul Dravid and Martin Crowe shared their thoughts on the three nominees - Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne and Jacques Kallis•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Tendulkar also paid tribute to Warne, whose strength he said was in the drift that he generated, and Kallis, for his unwavering concentration levels•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Seshadri was joined by Dr Simon King, another of the founders of ESPNcricinfo, on stage and the two took the audience through the site's journey from an amateur experiment to the world's biggest resource on cricket•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
ESPNcricinfo also introduced three new categories: Mohammad Shami won the Debutant of the Year award, Tarak Sinha won the inaugural Contribution to Cricket award for his four decades of efforts as a coach in Delhi and Rahul Dravid won the Cricket for Good award for his mentorship of junior and paralympic athletes•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
In the end, the 50-member jury of former cricketers and journalists from around the world picked Tendulkar ahead of his two contemporaries. Tendulkar received the award from ESPNcricinfo's founders•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
Tendulkar also talked about how he saw the game change during his career, pointing to the innovations in batting, bowling and fielding that were influenced by limited-overs cricket•ESPNcricinfo Ltd