Virat Kohli receives Rajiv Khel Ratna Award from President Ram Nath Kovind

Virat Kohli

The captain of the Indian cricket team Virat Kohli received the prestigious Rajiv Khel Ratna award from the President of India, Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. Kohli was accompanied to the ceremony by his mother, Saroj Kohli and his wife, Anushka Sharma.

He became only the third Indian cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar (1997) and MS Dhoni (2007) to receive this prestigious award.

Virat Kohli is currently the number one batsman in Tests and ODIs. The Delhi-batsman recently became the fastest cricketer to score 18,000 international runs in just 381 innings. In total, Kohli has scored 6,147 runs in 71 Tests and 9,779 runs in 211 ODIs.

What is more impressive about his batting statistics are his numbers as a captain. As the captain of the Indian ODI side, he has scored 3,059 runs at a strike rate of 98.74 with an average of 82.67, which is much higher than his career ODI average of 58.20.

Besides Virat Kohli, weightlifting world champion in the 48kg category, Mirabai Chanu is the only other sportsperson to receive the Khel Ratna Award this year. Chanu also won the Commonwealth gold but could not compete in the Asian Games due to an injury.

Below is a list of all the award winners:

FULL LIST - RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA WINNERS:

Cricket: Virat Kohli

Weightlifting: Mirabai Chanu

FULL LIST - ARJUNA AWARD WINNERS:

Athletics: Neeraj Chopra, Jinson Johnson and Hima Das

Badminton: N Sikki Reddy

Boxing: Satish Kumar

Cricket: Smriti Mandhana

Golf: Shubhankar Sharma

Hockey: Manpreet Singh, Savita

Polo: Ravi Rathore

Shooting: Rahi Sarnobat, Ankur Mittal, Shreyasi Singh

Table Tennis: Manika Batra, G Sathiyan

Tennis: Rohan Bopanna

Wrestling: Sumit

Wushu: Pooja Kadian

Para-Athletics: Ankur Dhama

Para-Badminton: Manoj Sarkar

FULL LIST – DRONACHARYA AWARD WINNERS

Boxing: C A Kuttappa

Weightlifting: Vijay Sharma

Table Tennis: A Srinivasa Rao

Athletics: Sukhdev Singh Pannu

Hockey, Lifetime Award: Clarence Lobo

Cricket, Lifetime Award: Tarak Sinha

Judo, Lifetime Award: Jiwan Kumar Sharma

Athletics, Lifetime Award: V R Beedu

FULL LIST – DHYAN CHAND AWARD WINNERS

Archery: Satyadev Prasad

Hockey: Bharat Kumar Chetry

Athletics: Bobby Aloysius

Wrestling: Chougale Dadu Dattatray