Gujarat cricket team head coach Mukund Parmar was honoured with the Hero Unsung Champion award at Sportstar's West Sports Conclave in Ahmedabad on Saturday. Pradip Parmar, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of Gujarat, presented the award.
“Thank you Sportstar for choosing me for this award,” Parmar said. “I would like to thank my family for their constant support. The cricket journey is still on, albeit in a different capacity. As for Gujarat, I feel it is time for the State to come to the fore in all sports. I’ve had the fortune of playing with many players over the course of two decades and have also coached them. In fact, the likes of Jasprit Bumrah were part of the India U-23 team that I had coached.”
At a time when the conventional big centres only would get Team India berths, ploughing away in domestic cricket season after season was a big deal. And Mukund Parmar, the current Gujarat coach, is a shining example of that. In a career spanning well over a decade, Parmar held Gujarat's batting together, scoring 6674 runs in 83 first-class matches. He has hit 20 hundreds and 30 fifties, at a staggering average of 49.80.
Such was his passion for cricket that he continued to give back to the game even after retirement. Parmar coached India Under-23 to the Asian Cricket Council Emerging Teams Cup title in 2013.
He has also groomed numerous players during the off-season camps at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. You can ask him and he'll tell you how he helped hone the skills of more than a handful of players who have gone on to play for India over the last decade.
The Conclave was held in association with Hero We Care, a Hero Motocorp CSR Initiative, K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management, Indian Oil, Shiv Naresh, Stag International, SBI and LIC.
The first edition of the Sportstar Sports Conclave was held in Kerala in 2021. Since then, Guwahati, Chennai and Lucknow have also hosted the event.
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