BATTING MAESTRO Sachin Tendulkar and the comeback cricketer -- Sourav Ganguly, are in the running for the Castrol Asian Cricketer of the Year Award. The duo will be competing against three Sri Lankans -- Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan. This is the first time ever that an award has been instituted, especially for the Asian cricketers.

The Castrol Asian Cricketing Awards will be given away in Karachi on June 27, during the Asia Cup. The awards will honour and felicitate Asia’s best cricketers on a biennial basis across all three formats of the game -- Test cricket, One-Dayers and T20 Internationals. This year, the awards will be given for the calendar year 2007.

Besides the overall category, the awards, which are based on a comprehensive point system called the Castrol Performance Index, will be given to the best batsman and bowler in various categories across the three formats of the game.

Cricketers from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India are in the running for these awards. The contenders include Younis Khan, Mohammed Yousuf, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Misbah ul Haq, Shoaib Malik, Chaminda D’Silva and Sanath Jayasuriya.

In addition to the Asian Cricket Awards, Castrol will also be giving the Castrol Pakistan Awards for Cricketing Excellence. The legendary Hanif Mohammed will receive the Castrol Pakistan Lifetime Achievement Award.

The awards will also be given to the Castrol Pakistan Cricketer of the Year and the Castrol Pakistan Junior Cricketer of the Year. The decade old Castrol India Awards for Cricketing Excellence will be given later this year.