Rohit Sharma has been nominated for the prestigious Khel Ratna award by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for his stupendous performance in 2019. Team India’s limited-overs vice-captain, who was named ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2019, became the first player to score five hundreds in the 50-over World Cup in England.
Rohit’s opening partner Shikhar Dhawan and pacer Ishant Sharma, the most-capped Test cricketer in the current set-up, have been nominated for the Arjuna Award. In the women’s section, Deepti Sharma was nominated for her consistent show across formats in the last three years.
Rohit with his magnificent white-ball record over the years was an automatic choice for the country’s highest sporting honour — 9115 runs in 224 ODIs with 29 hundreds and 43 fifties. He also has 2141 runs in 32 Tests with six hundreds and 10 fifties. In 108 T20Is, the 33-year-old has scored 2773 runs with four fifties.
“We went through a lot of data and considered various parameters before shortlisting the nominees. Rohit Sharma has set new benchmarks as a batsman and achieved scores people thought were not possible in the shorter formats of the game,” BCCI president Sourav Ganguly said, referring to Rohit’s three double hundreds in 50-over cricket.
