CNN-News18 Indian of the Year Awards 2025: ICC chairman Jay Shah receives Outstanding Achievement Award For Contributions To Indian Cricket

International Cricket Council (ICC) Chairman Jay Shah on Friday received 'Outstanding Achievement Award For Contributions To Indian Cricket' at the CNN-News18 Indian of the Year Awards 2025. While receiving the award Shah recalled steps like introducing pay parity for women players and launching the Women’s Premier League (WPL) as some of his favourite decisions taken during his tenure as the Secretary of BCCI.

Upon receiving the award, Shah thanked News18 jury for the honour. He also thanked the women's cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur, former cricketers and dedicated the award to the women cricketers.

Shah took the audience to the days prior to December 2024, before he took over as the chairman of ICC. He recalled, "I took over as the secretary of BCCI on October 23, 2019. From then, till December 01, 2024, we took a lot of crucial decisions and achieved several milestones — which included strengthening he domestic structure, we worked to achieve pay-parity (equal pay for men and women cricketers), we launched WPL (Women Premier League), the media rights were sold for Rs 50,000 crore — and that too without any controversy. We made a National Cricket Academy that comprised of 20 lakh square feet space and contained the latest facilities — like, for instance, there are pitches similar to Perth, Cape Town, Sydney, Melbourne, Lord's — which is why see a lot of improvement in our performances at these venues now."

While talking about his favourite decisions while at BCCI's helms, he said, "Pay parity for women cricketers, and launching of the WPL — and the results of which are here for all to see."

"I would like to congratulate Harmanpreet and team, for winning the hearts of the entire country, and you competed with the men cricketers and put them under pressure (to perform at par)," he added.

"In February 2023, in Cape Town (South Africa), when we lost to Australia, then Jemima Rodrigues and Harmanpreet gave a tough fight to the Aussies, but we lost by a small margin. But we avenged it at the DY Patil Stadium (by winning the ICC Women's World Cup 2025)," he summed up saying.

ICC Chairman Jay Shah wins #IndianOfTheYear Outstanding Achievement award for his outstanding contribution towards cricket@JayShah | @Zakka_Jacob | #Cricket #IndianCricketTeam #ICC #BCCI #CNNNews18 pic.twitter.com/IeaMPotCv6

— News18 (@CNNnews18) November 28, 2025