Mohinder Amarnath to receive CK Nayudu award

Mohinder Amarnath, the former Indian allrounder, has been chosen for the CK Nayudu lifetime achievement award, the highest honour the Indian board can bestow on a former player. It will be presented to him later this month in Mumbai.

The CK Nayudu award comes with a trophy, a citation and a cash prize of Rs. 15 lakh (approx. US$ 3w,000).

Amarnath - or Jimmy as he prefers to be known - scored 4,378 runs at an average of 42.50. Yet he will perhaps most be remembered for winning Man-of-the-Match awards in the 1983 World Cup semi-final against England and in the final against West Indies, when India achieved one of the game's most unexpected victories.

A technically accomplished and orthodox right-hander, he saved his best performances for the fearsome West Indies pace attacks. He made 85 in Trinidad in 1975-76 as India made the highest ever fourth innings score to win a Test (406 for 4) and was the brightest start of the 1983 Lord's final, scoring 26 and taking 3 for 12 with his useful medium-pacers.

The preceding winter Amarnath showed remarkable consistency in making 1182 runs at 69.53 in 11 overseas Tests, five of which were in the Caribbean and none of which India won, although the following winter he made just one run in six innings as the West Indian fast bowlers wreaked their revenge.

The son of the great Indian captain Lala, Amarnath also captained Delhi to the Ranji Trophy in 1981/82 - he scored 185 as they overhauled Karnataka's 705 to win an extraordinary final - and made a century before lunch against Northants in 1986.