Karachi: Sourav Ganguly took centre stage in the inaugural Castrol Asian Cricket Awards, for 2007, which were presented at the Pearl Continental here on Friday afternoon.

Owing to father Chandi’s illness (he’s hospitalised in London), Sourav couldn’t make it, but wife Dona was present to collect two awards — overall cricketer and overall batsman.

A video-recording of Sourav’s acceptance speech, so to say, was played out and greeted with a round of applause.

For the past six months, though, the national selectors have only been considering the former Team India captain for Tests. “The awards do mean a lot for Sourav,” Dona told The Telegraph.

Muttiah Muralidharan also bagged two awards — overall bowler and Test bowler — but Sourav got the biggest one.

Ironically, gloveman Kamran Akmal got the award for overall fielder at a time he’s out of favour.

Three Pakistan-specific awards too were presented, with Hanif Mohammed getting the one for lifetime achievement. Surprisingly, the cricketer of the year award went to captain Shoaib Malik.

Speaking at the function, the iconic Hanif said: “We learnt to play straight by hanging balls from a tree and hitting them straight back. If we didn’t, the balls wouldn’t come back to us...”

Other awardees who spoke on the occasion included (alphabetically):

Gautam Gambhir: The T20 format has worked out really well for me... I must thank Virender Sehwag for the runs, as they’ve come from the bat he gave me.

Fervez Mahroof: I try to keep it simple... Bowl in the right areas and, by doing so, put pressure.

Muralidharan: It’s getting tougher... The batsmen are getting better and they’re getting to know me better... We’ve been working hard and that’s the reason for our success.

Kumar Sangakkara: When you’re in form, you look far more intelligent than you actually are... We’ve been pushing ourselves to get better... If you really enjoy what you’re doing, then it gets easier.