The Board of Control for Cricket in India launched its official international and domestic cricket ratings in Mumbai on Thursday.

"This is the first official ratings and will cover first class cricket, domestic cricket, under-19 and women's cricket. The ratings will be derived from the official statistics of the BCCI," said BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi.

The first awards ceremony will be held next year, at the end of the 2006-07 domestic cricket season.

"A lot of domestic players' efforts go unrecognized even after doing so well. That is why we have decided to highlight their performance and put them across to the world. This will be a huge boost for the cricketers," Modi said.

He also added that every domestic match would be recorded and the video clips made available on the BCCI website, which should be launched in a few months.

"We will, on a weekly basis, analyse the performances of the under-15, under-17, under-19s in domestic cricket and women's cricket," Modi said.

He also added that a lot of effort is being made to popularise women's cricket, which has been taken over by the BCCI.

There will also be a dedicated website for the BCCI awards -- www.bcciratings.com -- where the common man can also play a role in the voting process for the awards, thereby winning prizes, Modi informed.

The awards process begins with collecting the official performance data gathered by BCCI statisticians, which will then be applied to a ratings model, developed by an expert BCCI panel.

The ratings will then be generated for all players, out of which the top four or five would be selected. The public will then be informed of the rating system and nominated players through the media regularly. They can then vote through mediums like cell phones and Internet.

There will also be a continuous daily voting for India's favourite cricketer.

The first ratings are scheduled to be released in October and the first awards ceremony will be held before the World Cup.

Ratings:
Broad classification for ODIs and Tests. The following categories are included:
Batsmen Rating
Bowler rating
Fielder rating
All rounder rating

Annual awards event categories:
Technical (ODI and Test)
Best bat
Best bowler
Best fielder
Best all-rounder
Best opening bat
Most consistent/reliable player
Best Innings of the year

Popular categories:
Based on the voting through the year and also voting on few categories before awards

Player of the year - Test and ODI
My Favourite player
Most stylish player
Master blaster of the year

Viewers voting categories
Player of the week
My favourite player.