Cricket and karate dominated the nominations in the four categories of the NSJF Pulsar Sports Awards 2081 announced on Saturday. Then there is the Kho Kho game in the third.

The nominations for male, female, young player and coach categories of the year have been announced in this sports award which is held continuously in Nepali sports. The 22nd edition of this award will be held in Pokhara on August 29, according to the organizer Nepal Sports Journalists Forum. 

Best 5-5 people are nominated in four categories. Dipendrasinh Airi and Kushal Bhurtel in men's cricket, Pooja Mahato in youth and Mahesh Rizal in coaching. Similarly, Erika Gurung and Elisa Rascotti Magar have been nominated for Karate, Anjali Maharjan for Youth and Kushal Shrestha for Coach. Erica and Kushal are also winners of previous editions. 

Janak Chand men, Manmati Dhami women and Lakshminarayan Vaidya are nominated as coaches from the Nepalese men's and women's teams who became runners-up in the Kho Kho World Cup. 

Men's table tennis player Santu Shrestha, who won the South Asian qualifiers and played in the Paris Olympics, and Usu's Vijay Sinjali, who won bronze in the third Thaulu World Cup, are also nominated. Vijay is also a contestant of People's Choice. 

Dipendra, who made a record by hitting 6 sixes in one over against Qatar in the ACC Premier Cup, is the player who took the most 6 wickets for Nepal in the T20 World Cup. He became the best player in the NPL and took 3 wickets against South Africa and 2 wickets against Bangladesh in the World Cup. Kushal took 4 wickets against South Africa in the T-20 World Cup and took 481 runs and 20 wickets during his all-round performance in 2081. Janak was Nepal's vice-captain in the Kho Kho World Cup. He was the player of the match in two matches and led Nepal to the finals. 

On the women's side, Erica, who won a historic silver at the 20th ACF Senior Karate Championship last year, and Alyssa, who won silver and bronze at the 16th Asia Pacific Karate, are competing against football's Rekha Paudel, volleyball's Salina Shrestha and Kho Khoki Manmati.

Rekha, who became the top scorer in the SAFF Championship with 7 goals, is the first Nepali player to play in the AFC Women's Champions League. The role of libero Salina was high when the Nepali team became the runner-up in the Kava Nations Cup and Lalitpur Queens became the runner-up in the Franchise League. When Nepal was the runner-up in the Kho Kho World Cup, Manmati was the player of the match in four matches and was chosen as the best attacker in the semi-finals and the best defender in the final.  A 5-member selection committee consisting of Niranjan Rajvanshi, Prajit Shakya, Himesharatna Vajracharya and Virat Rayamazhi under the coordination of

Mancha Secretary Anil Malla Thakuri has selected the players. It is said that the nomination was made on the basis of success and excellent performance in national and international competitions in the year 2081.

Among the young players are Pooja of cricket and Anjali of karate, Swastika Tiruwa of boxing, Ajay Bik of athletics and Sameer Tamang of football. Under her captaincy, Pooja led Nepal to the ICC U-19 Women's World Cup. She scored a century in the U-19 Asia Cup qualifiers and also took the highest 10 wickets. Anjali won gold in the Asia Pacific and South Asian U-21 Karate Championships. Ajay won a bronze medal in the South Asian Junior Athletics and a bronze medal in the team event of the SAFF Cross Country Championship. Swastika is a gold-winning boxer at the ISF Gymnasium, while Sameer is a player who scored a hat-trick against Chinese Taipei in the AFC U-20 Championship.  Apart from Karate's Kushal, Cricket's Mahesh, Kho Kho's Lakshminarayan, Para Taekwondo's Kaviraj Negi Lama and Boxing's Deepak Maharjan are among the top 5. Kushal is the coach associated with the success of Erika, Alyssa and Anjali in karate. Mahesh was the coach of the team that took Nepal to the U-19 Women's World Cup for the first time. Lakshminarayan is the coach of Banda, the runner-up in the Nepal Kho Kho World Cup. While Kaviraj was the coach who won bronze in the Paris Paralympics, Deepak is the coach who won 2 gold and 2 bronze medals for Nepali athletes in gymnastics.