Ali and Singh nominated for awards

Leicestershire County Cricket Club has two nominations for the forthcoming Talk Home Mobile Asian Cricket Awards.

Young batsman Aadil Ali, who had a terrific breakthrough season in which he scored 412 LV=County Championship runs at an average of 37.45, is up for the Professional Young Player of the Year award.

Club Doctor Harjinder Singh is a contender for the Behind the Scenes Award for his work both with Leicestershire CCC and England Lions.

The Asian Cricket Awards are held at Lord’s on Tuesday, October 13 in association with the ECB and are supported by the Club Cricket Conference. They are open to people with British Asian heritage as well as to those dedicated to increasing Asian participation in British cricket.

Moeen Ali came to speak at Leicestershire CCC’s end of season awards dinner last Friday and he is a nominee for the Professional Player of the Year Award along with Varun Chopra and Adil Rashid.

Leicestershire CCC Chief Executive Wasim Khan MBE, a winner of the Special Recognition Founders Award at the inaugural event last year, is part of a nine-person judging panel.

The shortlist for the 2015 Asian Cricket Awards is:

– GRASSROOTS AWARD
Sajid Patel (founder, National Cricket League), Azam Riyard (Crawley Eagles CC & Sussex Cricket in the Community), Munir Ali (Moseley Ashfield CC)

– INSPIRATION AWARD
Sohail Rauf (chair, Welsh Asians CC), Shahidul Alan Ratan (Capital Kids Cricket), Salma Bi (Worcestershire CCC)

– PROFESSIONAL YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Haseeb Hameed (Lancashire and England U19), Kishen Velani (Essex CCC), Aadil Ali (Leicestershire CCC)

– WOMAN IN CRICKET AWARD
Hannaa Zaman (Glamorgan CCC, Cricket Wales), Halima Khan (ICC coach), Sonia Odedra (Nottinghamshire CCC and England)

– COACH OF THE YEAR AWARD
Saba Nasim (ECB 2015 coach of the year), Cookie Patel (ECB coach, England women), Qasim Ali (Lancashire South Asian Talent Search, England Physical Disability Squad)

– MEDIA AWARD
Kalika Mehta (BBC Sport Online), Nikesh Rughani (BBC Sport, Sky Sports, BBC Asian Network), Isa Guha (Test Match Special, IPL TV presenter, former England bowler)

– BEHIND THE SCENES AWARD
Kunwar Bansil (lead physiotherapist, Yorkshire CCC), Halima Khan (ICC coach), Dr Harjinder Singh (consultant in sport and exercise medicine, Leicestershire CCC, England Lions)

– ASIAN TEAM OF THE YEAR
Batley CC (Yorkshire), Great Horton Church CC (Bradford), Attock CC (Birmingham)

– ECB DIVERSITY AWARD
Sussex CCC, Lancashire CCC, Glamorgan CCC & Cricket Wales

– PROFESSIONAL PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Varun Chopra (Warwickshire CCC, Birmingham Bears), Moeen Ali (Worcestershire CCC and England), Adil Rashid (Yorkshire CCC and England)

– 2015 JUDGING PANEL:
The judging panel includes:
– Wasim Khan MBE
– The Rt Hon. the Baroness Warsi
– Mike Gatting OBE
– Asif Karim (Chief Executive, Talk Home Mobile)
– Kabir Ali
– Jane Hannah
– Tony Matharu (Chief Executive, Grange Hotels)
– Min Patel
– Scyld Berry