Cricketer Shami, chess ace Vaishali, rising archer Deotale nominated for Arjuna
NEW DELHI:
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy
and
Chirag Shetty
, the first Indian badminton doubles pair to reach No. 1 in BWF rankings, were on Wednesday recommended for the country's highest sporting honour - Major Dhyan Chand
Khel Ratna
. Cricketer
Mohammed Shami
, one of the standout performers in India's ODI World Cup campaign, was nominated for the Arjuna award for this year by a 12-member selection committee, headed by retired Supreme Court judge, Justice A M Khanwilkar.
Satwiksairaj and Chirag were rewarded for their superlative performances in 2023, where they created records and rewrote history books. They not only rose to the top of the world rankings, but also won the Indonesia Open Super 1000, the Thomas Cup, a medal at the BWF World Championships and the country's maiden gold at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
Like the previous year when table tennis legend, Achanta Sharath Kamal, was recommended for the Khel Ratna, this year, too, the selection committee chose to nominate the pairing of Satwiksairaj and Chirag as joint recipients of the award.
For Arjuna, the committee recommended a total of 26 athletes, including Shami, whose name was added on a request by the Indian cricket board (BCCI) to the sports ministry. The last date for the receipt of applications had passed and the star speedster was in the middle of the World Cup campaign. The 33-year-old shone bright in the tournament, emerging as the leading wicket-taker with 24 scalps in seven outings.
Apart from Shami, chess ace R Vaishali, who became the third Indian woman to become a Grandmaster, Anush Agarwalla, who won two equestrian medals at the Hangzhou Asiad including a historic gold in the dressage team event, Ojas Pravin Deotale, who clinched a hat-trick of gold medals in archery events in Hangzhou and became the country's first compound archery world champion, steeplechaser
Parul Chaudhary
, who landed India's first-ever gold medal in women's 5000m race at the Asiad, apart from clinching a silver in the 3000m event,
Roshibina Devi
, who ended India's 13-year-long wait for a silver from the wushu arena after securing an impressive second-place finish in the final of the women's 60kg sanda event at the Asiad and para archer
Sheetal Devi
, who, in her debut Para Asiad in Hangzhou, bagged two gold medals and a silver and followed that with another set of gold medals at the Para Asian Championships to become the World No.1 in the women's open compound section, were the other nominations for the Arjuna.
There were eight nominations for the Dronacharya award and three for the
Dhyan Chand
lifetime award.
THOSE RECOMMENDED:
Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna: Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty (badminton).
Arjuna Award: Mohammed Shami (cricket), Ajay Reddy (blind cricket) Ojas Pravin Deotale and Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery), Sheetal Devi (para archery), Parul Chaudhary and Murali Sreeshankar (athletics), Mohd Hussamuddin (boxing), R Vaishali (chess), Divyakriti Singh and Anush Agarwalla (equestrian), Diksha Dagar (golf), Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Sushila Chanu (hockey), Pinki Singh (lawn bowls), Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Esha Singh (shooting), Sunil Kumar and Antim Panghal (wrestling), Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis), Pawan Kumar Sehrawat (kabaddi), Nasreen (kho kho), Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (squash), Vishnu Saravanan (sailing), Roshibina Devi (wushu) and Prachi Yadav (para canoeing).
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) trophy: Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), Lovely Professional University (LPU) and Kurukshetra University.
Dronacharya Award: Ganesh Prabhakaran (mallakhamb), Mahavir Saini (para athletics), Lalit Kumar (wrestling), R B Ramesh (chess), Shivendra Singh (hockey), Jaskirat Singh Grewal (golf), Edachery Bhaskaran (kabaddi) and Jayanta Kumar (table tennis).
Dhyan Chand Lifetime Award: Vineet Kumar Sharma (hockey), Kavita S (kabaddi) and Manjusha Kanwar (badminton).
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