Shikhar Dhawan
Shikhar Dhawan (Image Credit: Twitter)

India batsman Shikhar Dhawan has been nominated for the Arjuna Award, a higher-ranked sports honour for any athlete in the country.

Along with the left-hander, 34 others including para TT player Bhavina Patelpara shuttler Suhas Yathiraj, high jumper Nishad Kumar, Yogesh Kathuniya, Praveen Kumar, Singhraj Adhana, Harvinder Singh, Sharad Kumar are selected for the Arjuna award.

Members of the Indian men’s hockey team that won the Olympics bronze medal – which comprises Harmanpreet Singh, Rupinder Pal Singh, Surender Kumar, Amit Rohidas, Birendra Lakra, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Shamsher Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, and Mandeep Singh – have been nominated as well.

India cricket team
Shikhar Dhawan[photo: Twitter]
Shikhar Dhawan remains a key player in India’s ODI team but has been dropped from the Test and T20I sides. The left-hander has amassed 10179 international runs across formats so far in his career and has struck 24 centuries.

Shikhar Dhawan was the Player Of The Series in India’s victorious 2013 Champions Trophy campaign – the opener scored 363 runs in 5 matches at an average of 90.75.

Mithali Raj among 11 nominated for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award

India women’s Test and ODI captain Mithali Raj has been nominated for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award – which is the highest sporting honour in India – by the national sports awards committee.

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Ten other Indian athletes from various disciplines were recommended alongside Mithali Raj by the committee for this prestigious award, most notably among them is Neeraj Chopra, who secured a gold medal at Tokyo Olympics 2020 in Javelin.

Mithali Raj
Mithali Raj (Image Credit: Twitter)

Other Olympic medal winners – Ravi Dahiya, PR Sreejesh and Lovlina Borgohai -have also been nominated. Football legend Sunil Chhetri becomes the first Indian footballer to be recommended for the Khel Ratna Award.

Raj is the leading run-scorer in women’s cricket – she has amassed 7391 ODI runs, 2364 T20I runs, and 699 Test runs in her career which began in 1999. She doesn’t play in the shortest format anymore, but leads the nation in ODI and Test cricket; Mithali Raj, 38, is perhaps eyeing next year’s ODI World Cup as her swansong.

Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma are the men’s cricketers who have previously won this distinguished award.

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