The Saroj Mahasuara Memorial Sports Award for the year 2011 was conferred on pace bowler Soumendra Das and umpire Mario Francis in a function here at Rameswar Sporting Club premises, Old Town today. Twenty-year-old Soumendra, who bagged 23 wickets from five matches for the state junior team this season, received the award as the best young cricketer of the year, while BCCI Level-I umpire Francis was honoured for his 15-year-long contribution to the sport as an official.

Former India hockey captain Prabodh Tirkey and local MLA Ashok Chandra Panda presented citations and mementos to the awardees in the presence of host Rameswar Sporting Club vice-president Samir Mohanty and secretary Manoj Mohapatra.

The award was instituted in the year 2004 in the memory of umpire Saroj Mahasuara, who died in a road accident while returning home after officiating in an inter-district match at Cuttack in 2002.

Past recipients of the award include cricketers Deepak Mangaraj (2004), Paresh Patel (2005), Atish Jena (2006), Alok Sahu, Alok Mangaraj (both 2007), Haladhar Das (2008), Basant Mohanty (2009), Natraj Behera (2010) and umpires Arun Kumar Basa (2009) and Subrat Das (2010).
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PHOTO: Saroj Mahasuara Memorial Award recipients Soumendra Das (L) and Mario Francis with hockey star Prabodh Tirkey (C) in Bhubaneswar on September 6, 2011.