New Delhi: Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and World Champion weightlifter Mirabai Chanu were Monday jointly recommended for the country’s highest sporting honour — the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.
Star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra was among 20 sportspersons picked for the Arjuna Awards. The other prominent names recommended for the Arjuna were Hima Das, Jinson Johnson (athletes), Smriti Mandhana (women’s cricket), Manpreet Singh, Savita Punia (hockey), Manika Batra (table tennis) and Rohan Bopanna (tennis).
Kohli will become the third Indian cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar (1997) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (2007) once the sports ministry officially accepts the committee’s recommendation, to give him the award.
“Yes, Virat Kohli and Mirabai Chanu’s names have been recommended by the awards committee,” a top source told this agency on condition of anonymity.
It is learnt that India’s top male shuttler Kidambi Srikanth was in contention for his good show in the Super Series Circuit last year but lost out to the 24-year-old Chanu, who is the reigning World Champion in the 48kg category.
The BCCI has been nominating Kohli for the Khel Ratna for the past three years but in 2016, it was given to Sakshi Malik, PV Sindhu and Deepa Karmakar for their good show at the Rio Olympics.
Last year, the Khel Ratna was awarded to former India hockey captain Sardar Singh and para-athlete Devendra Jhajharia.
The 29-year-old Kohli currently has 6,147 runs in 71 Tests with 23 centuries and 9,779 runs in 211 ODIs, including 35 tons.
Kohli is one of those rare sportspersons, who has received Padma Shri award (2017) before Khel Ratna.
For Chanu, the award comes as a massive morale-booster as she is currently recovering from a lower back injury, which forced her to skip the Asian Games in Jakarta.
She is the current Commonwealth Games gold medallist and India’s only medal hope in weightlifting going into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Dronacharya nominations
New Delhi: National archery compound coach Jiwanjot Singh Teja is set to become one of the youngest Dronacharya awardees after the 34-year old’s name was recommended for the honour along with Asian Games gold medallist Arpinder Singh’s coach SS Pannu. Also recommended for the Dronacharya award are CA Kuttappa (boxing), Vijay Sharma (weightlifting) and A Srinivasa Rao (table tennis), according to sources in the Sports Ministry. Four coaches have been recommended for the Dronacharya award in the life-time category. They are Clarence Lobo (hockey), Tarak Sinha (cricket), Jiwan Kumar Sharma (judo) and VR Beedu (athletics). Four Dhyan Chand awardees picked by the selection committee are Satyadev Prasad (archery), Bharat Chhetri (hockey), Bobby Aloysius (athletics) and Chougale Dadu Dattatray.