Rahul Bhattacharya is 'Cricket Writer of the Year'

Cricinfo's Rahul Bhattacharya has been voted as the 'Cricket Writer of the Year' by the Tata Sports Journalists' Federation of India, in the annual Indian Sports Journalism Awards held in Mumbai on Thursday. Bhattacharya also won the award for the 'Best Feature of the Year' in the magazine category.

The second edition of the awards was attended by Sunil Gavaskar, Nari Contractor, the former Indian captain, and several other notable personalities from other fields. Bhattacharya who has extensively covered international cricket for the last five years won awards in both the categories he was shortlisted in, ahead of Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, also from Cricinfo, and Sharda Ugra from India Today. His cover story for the February 2006 issue of Cricinfo Magazine - titled 'The heart of the matter' and reflecting on how Sourav Ganguly is the most fascinating Indian cricketer of our time - enabled him to win the 'Cricket Writer of the Year' trophy.

Another cover story, written for the April 2005 issue of Wisden Asia Cricket, on the impact that Virender Sehwag's rapid pace has on his teams' performance, was voted the 'Best Feature of the Year' in the magazine category. Bhattacharya, who is currently on a sabbatical, wasn't present to collect the awards.

Cricinfo's Anand Vasu and Vaidyanathan were nominated in the 'Best of the Web' section but lost out to Deepti Patwardhan from Rediff. Ugra won the award for 'Best Magazine Interview'. Among the newspapers, Hindustan Times won the maximum number of awards in diverse categories like photography, football and other sports.

Gavaskar, one of the guests of honours in the function, spoke about how the press remains one of the pillars of the sporting fraternity, adding that it was vital that sportsmen, administrators, media and fans work with a common purpose in mind.