Destructive Indian opener Rohit Sharma is now nominated for the country’s highest sporting honour, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. He is the 5th sportsperson to get nominated for this prestigious award. The other 4 names are wrestler Vinesh Phogat, women’s hockey captain Rani Rampal, table tennis star Manika Batra and Rio Paralympic gold-winning high jumper Mariyappan Thangavelu.
Rohit, who is a right-handed batsman started his career in year of 2007. He was a promising player but, unfortunately, missed the chance to be in the squad of 2007 T-20 World Cup. He did not get that much fame being a middle-order batsman and a part-time bowler at that time.
He fought and trained hard and made a massive comeback to the Indian cricket team as an opening batsman. In the test match against South Africa on 5th October 2019, Sharma became the first batsman to score two centuries in a match on his first appearance as an opening batsman. In the same series, he broke Shimron Hetmyer’s record for the highest number of sixes in a Test series.
The rest is history. Now he is one of the finest opening batsmen of all time. He holds the record of highest individual runs scored by a batsman in an ODI with a massive 264 runs scored against Sri Lanka. He was also the highest run-scorer in 2019 ICC World Cup which is 648. He is not only a destructive opener but also a promising captain. Being the captain of IPL side Mumbai Indians he has won the IPL title 4 freaking times (2013,2015,2017,2019).
Hitman will be the fourth cricketer to win this award. Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and captain Virat Kohli have been already conferred with the Khel Ratna. (Tendulkar: 1998, Dhoni: 2007 and Kohli: 2018).
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, things will not be normal. The award ceremony will be conducted virtually. Otherwise, it is held at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The date of the ceremony is 29th August. That day is celebrated as the National Sports Day to mark the birth anniversary of Hockey legend Dhyan Chand.
Other than this, fierce Indian bowler, Ishant Sharma has found himself as one of the nominees for the Arjuna award. He has played 97 Tests and 80 ODIs for India and he is the owner of 400 international wickets.
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