The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to nominate Ravichandran Ashwin and Mithali Raj as the cricketer nominees for the Khel Ratna award 2021
They have also decided to suggest the names of players like Shikhar Dhawan, K.L. Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah for the Arjuna Award.
BCCI Names Cricketer Nominees For Khel Ratna Award 2021
The reason why R.Ashwin is nominated for the prestigious award is because he became one of the fastest bowler to have taken 250, 300 and 350 wickets in his test cricket career. It just took him 45 test matches to get the achievement of 250 wickets and it took him 54 matches to get the achievement of 300 wickets. He also became the third fastest bowler to get 200 test wickets. He just achieved this feat in just 37 matches.
He also became the fastest Indian bowler to get 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350 and 400 wickets milestones. He is currently ranked as the World No.2 bowlers in test cricket and is also ranked as the World No.4 all rounder till March 2021.
The reason why Mithali Raj is nominated for the prestigious award is because she is currently the leading run scorer for the Indian side in all three formats. She scored her seventh consecutive half-century in the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup and also became the first player to have scored the most consecutive half century.
She became the first Indian women cricketer and the fifth woman cricketer in the world to have scored more than 1,000 runs in World Cup. She also became the first women cricketer for playing the most women’s one day international for a team i.e., 109 matches.
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Khel Ratna Award Nominees 2021
Legendary sprinter Dutee Chand has been nominated by the Odisha government for the Khel Ratna Awards. The state government has also nominated five other players along with Chand. Other sport persons like Rohit Sharma, Vinesh Phogat, Rani Rampal, Mariyappan Thangavelu and Manika Batra were awarded with the Khel Ratna last year.
Just two athletes were honoured with Khel Ratna award in the year 2019. The last time when more than two athletes were honoured with the Khel Ratna was in 2016, when players such as PV Sindhu, Dipa Karmakar, Jitu Rai and Sakshi Malik were awarded with the highest sporting honour for their brilliant performances in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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