Indian Premier League’s Chairman Lalit Modi was among the recipients of the ‘CNBC Awaaz Consumer Awards 2008’ for the Twenty20 league’s phenomenal success in its first year of inception.

The Indian Cricket Board’s vice president, whose brainchild was the multi-million dollar IPL which took the cricket world by storm, won the channel’s newly introduced special category award “for transforming cricket in India”, and was conferred with the honour at a function in Mumbai, a media release said.

Sharad Pawar, who headed the BCCI for three years when the IPL was conceived and put in operation by Modi, said in his speech that the league is one of the strongest brands that India has in the world.

In lighter vein Pawar, the Union Agriculture Minister who relinquished his BCCI post on September 27 after completing his term, wondered who has become a bigger brand — IPL or Modi himself, the release said.

Modi, in his acceptance speech, thanked Pawar for taking the initiative and putting the IPL in place after the idea had been placed on the backburner by the BCCI for many years.

Other special awardees were Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar (Entertainment Brand Ambassador of the Year) and public sector firm BSNL (Hall of Fame), the release said.

The winners of the special category of awards introduced this year were selected through a poll by the channel and a jury panel, the release added.

Source: hindustantimes.com