No cricketer in Arjuna Award list this year, women cricketers to suffer by the move

No cricketer will be on the award list for Arjuna Award or Rajiv Gandhi Ratna this year. The sports ministry-BCCI feud has taken an interesting turn with the latter not nominating any cricketer for this year’s Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna or Arjuna Awards. All sports federations, except the Board of Control for Cricket in India, have sent their entries for the prestigious awards.

This BCCI’s move is going to hit women cricketers the most, as they are not well paid and recognised like their male counterparts. Former captain Jhulan Goswami was the last woman cricketer to win the Arjuna Award, says a report in The DNA.

If sources in the sports ministry are to be believed, six entries for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and 81 for Arjuna have been received so far. In normal circumstances, it would not have raised eyebrows but these are anything but normal times. With a full-blown battle going on between sports minister Ajay Maken and officials of the BCCI, one could interpret this as a result of the same.

Meanwhile according to a report in The Hindustan Times, the Board of Control for Cricket in India is blaming the sports ministry after failing to recommend any cricketer for the Arjuna award this year. According to the eligibility criteria given on the sports ministry's website, national sports federations, select public sector undertakings, state governments etc. should fill the application form available on the ministry's website and directly send in the nominations. The ministry does not notify the federations separately.

The form must be filled and signed by the athlete and countersigned by the federation etc. concerned and submitted to the ministry by the deadline, which is April 30. However, the BCCI claimed the sports ministry did not send any notification this year.

Away from all this, Vikas Krishan Yadav (boxing), Ronjan Sodhi and Sanjeev Rajput (shooting), Somdev Devvarman (tennis), Jwala Gutta (badminton) and Sandeep Singh (hockey) have been nominated for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the country’s highest sporting honour.
Dipika Kumari (archery), Sardar Singh, Shivendra Singh, Tushar Khandekar, Arjun Halappa, Bharat Chettri (hockey), Rohan Bopanna (tennis), Narsingh Yadav (wrestling) and Ashwini Ponnappa (badminton) are some of the sportspersons recommended for the Arjuna Award.