Ekamra Sports Literature Festival to go global in 2026, to also recognise international sports writers

‘Bring It On’ by Deepa Malik and Soni Sangwan was awarded ESLF Sports Book of the Year 2025 

Rakesh Thapliyal

New Delhi: After six years of being Asia’s Sports Literature Awards, Ekamra Sports Literature Festival  will expand wings in year 2026 by making the award global and recognise international sports writers for their work. Sundeep Misra, Director of Ekamra Sports Literature Festival Sundeep announced their plans here on Saturday.

‘Bring It On’ by Deepa Malik and Soni Sangwan was awarded Ekamra Sports Literature Festival’s (ESLF) Sports Book of the Year, 2025, while The Diary of a Cricketer ‘s Wife by Puja Pujara and Namita Kala was awarded ESLF’s Biography of the Year, 2025.

Other sports books that won this year’s ESLF awards were The One, Cricket, My Life and More by Shikhar Dhawan, Chandresh Narayan and Namita Kala for Autobiography of the Year, Fearless by Mohinder Amarnath and Rajinder Amarnath for Cricket Book of the Year, Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People’s Football in India which got the Special Jury Award and Harper Collins for Publisher of the Year.

ELSF, which celebrated the 7th season of its event on Saturday, November 22nd, also hosted a special panel discussion with Olympic Gold medallist and World Record holder (2.45m) Javier Sotomayor, along with India’s current high jump National Record holder (2.29m) and medallist Tejaswin Shankar.

The duo discussed Sotomayor’s gravity defying World Record jumps which despite the gap of 32 years still stands. Talking about his record and being the only person to have breached the 8-feet mark, the Cuban high-jumper said “I think what helped me was an athlete in the era of High Jump, when there was very high quality of High jumpers in the world and I learned a lot from them and also a lot of my predecessors whom I observed a lot and that is one advice I will tell others as well, you have to be very dedicated, focused and disciplined and always aiming to do what he did last year, better this year.”

The day ended with a session with cricket writer and filmmaker Jarrod Kimber, who spoke about The Art of Batting in which he has selected top 50 cricketers in the world and whose book closely looks at the cognition of skills and science and strategy used by some of the greatest batters of the world said “You can’t be an Rahul Dravid in this era, you have to be whatever your era allows you to be as a lot has changed post his retirement especially with involvement and inclusion of DRS and Review system.”

The annual ESLF event took place at Delhi’s Bikaner House this year and also featured special sessions by Italian author Franco Nugnes, Palestinian middle-distance runner Mohammed Dwedar, India’s first female Paralympic medallist Deepa Malik, authors Sandeep Menon (Sacred Grounds) and Jaydeep Basu (Who Stole My Football), author and Ekamra Sports Literature Festival director Sundeep Misra and the next generation of Indian athletics; hurdler Shourya Ambure, triple jumper Poorva Sawant, and middle and long-distance runner Bushra Khan.