From correspondents in Maharashtra, India, 11:30 PM IST

Captains of the Indian cricket teams - both past and present - were felicitated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at a function here Saturday night.

The C.K. Nayudu awards were also given away to seven cricketers for their contribution to Indian cricket.

The captains felicitated included Dattajirao Gaekwad, Nari Contractor, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Ajit Wadekar, Bishen Singh Bedi, S. Venkatraghavan, Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vengsarkar, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag.

Conspicuous by their absence were former captains Sourav Ganguly, Kapil Dev and Polly Umrigar.

The 80-year-old Umrigar could not attend the function due to illness. And it was cricketing reasons that kept away Ganguly from the award ceremony.

Ganguly is in Guwahati for the East Zone-North Zone Duleep Trophy.

India's famous spin quartet - E.A.S. Prasanna, Bishen Singh Bedi, B.S. Chandrasekhar and S. Venkatraghavan - Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Chandu Borde and B.B. Nimbalkar were the recipients of the C.K. Nayudu awards.

BCCI president Sarad Pawar gave away the awards at inauguration ceremony of the of the new BCCI swanky BCCI office at the Wankhede stadium here.

'It was good to see all the greats of Indian cricket being awarded but Polly-kaka was missed. With the great spin quartet here it would have been fantastic to have Eknath Solkar,' said Gavaskar on the sidelines on the ceremony.

'Standing at forward short-leg, he created immense pressure for the batsmen. I think he had a massive role to play in the wickets that the spinners got,' Gavaskar told IANS.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)