Rohit Sharma, Manika Batra recommended for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award
A 12-member selection committee of the Sports Ministry has recommended Rohit Sharma, Manika Batra, Vinesh Poghat and Mariyappan Thangavelu for this year's Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award. This is only the second time that four athletes have been recommended for the top sporting accolade.
After having an incredible seven-year-long dominance in limited-overs cricket, Rohit Sharma has pushed the limit of his talent to emerge as one of the all-time great openers in world cricket. To duly acknowledge the dominance he shared, the Indian sports ministry recommended the limited-overs vice-captain for the country’s highest sporting honour, with three other athletes.
Rohit will only be the fourth cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli to be conferred with the Khel Ratna. Tendulkar was the first Indian cricketer to get the Khel Ratna in 1998, followed by Dhoni in 2007 and Kohli in 2018.
Meanwhile, Vinesh Poghat has been rewarded for her gold medals in the 2018 Commonwealth and Asian Games besides a bronze in the 2019 Asian Wrestling Championships. One of the finest wrestlers in the world at the moment, Poghat has been touted as one of the front-runners for an Olympic medal next year.
The story goes the same for Manika Batra, who is the top-ranked female table tennis player in India and ranked 47th in the world, but she failed to secure a position in the Women's Team event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics when she lost in the opening match of the Tokyo 2020 Qualifiers quarter-final to France's Marie Migot 2-3. Mariyappan Thangavelu, meanwhile, is India's first Paralympian gold medalist since 2004 - he won the men's high jump T-42 category. The Government of India announced the "Padma Shri" award for him in 2017.