India batsmen, Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma were awarded with the prestigious Arjuna Award for 2016 and 2015 respectively, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.
About Arjuna Award :
The Arjuna Awards are given by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, government of India to recognize outstanding achievement in National sports.
- It is instituted in 1961; the award carries a cash prize of Rs. 500,000, a bronze statue of Arjuna and a scroll.
- Over the years the scope of the award has been expanded and a large number of sports persons who belonged to the pre-Arjuna Award era were also included in the list.
- Further, the number of disciplines for which the award is given was increased to include indigenous games and the physically handicapped category.
- The Government has recently revised the scheme for the Arjuna Award.
- As per the revised guidelines, to be eligible for the Award, a sports person should not only have had good performance consistently for the previous three years at the international level with excellence for the year for which the Award is recommended, but should also have shown qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline.
From the year 2001, the award is given only in disciplines falling under the following categories:
- Olympic Games / Asian Games / Commonwealth Games / World Cup / World Championship Disciplines and Cricket
- Indigenous Games
- Sports for the Physically Challenged
About Ajinkya Rahane :
Ajinkya Madhukar Rahane is an international cricketer who represents India and is the vice captain in the Test format of the game. He is a right-handed batsman who made his international debut in a Twenty 20 International against England at Manchester in August 2011 and made his Test debut against Australia in March 2013.
- Rahane made his first-class debut in 2007–08 season and averaged an impressive 62.04 after 100 innings. Rahane scored over 1000 runs three times in his first five seasons.
- With batsman Shikhar Dhawan injuring his fingers, Rahane made his Test debut in the 2013 Border–Gavaskar Trophy. Rahane’s first Test century came at Basin Reserve, Wellington against New Zealand.
- Rahane plays in the middle-order for the national team in Test and ODI cricket and as an opener in all forms of T20 cricket. He batted in the top three for Mumbai – starting out as an opener and later playing at No. 3 .
- Rahane is widely praised by Dhoni for his batting technique, commitment and discipline to the game, often being compared withRahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.
- He has been described on a number of occasions as “one of the rising stars of Indian cricket”.
- Former Australian captainSteve Waugh compared Rahane to the batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar due to his compact technique, range of shots and most importantly temperament.
About Rohit Sharma :
Rohit Gurunath Sharma is an Indian cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and an occasional right-arm off break bowler who plays for Mumbai in domestic cricket. He is the captain of the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.
- Having started his international career at the age of 20, Sharma quickly came to be pegged by many analysts as a permanent fixture in theIndian cricket team in the next decade.
- He made his ODI debut on June 23, 2007 against Ireland. In 2013, he started playing as an opening batsman for IndiaODI team, and performed consistently.
- He scored consecutive centuries in his first twoTest matches against the West Indies in November 2013, scoring 177 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on debut, followed by a score of 111* in the next Test at the Wankhede Stadium in India. He played 108 ODIs before playing his maiden Test.
- On 13 November 2014, Rohit Sharma scored 264 againstSri Lanka at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, which is the highest individual score in ODIs. He thus became the only player in the world to score two double hundreds in ODIs.
- Rohit Sharma is the third skipper after MS Dhoni and Gautam Gambhir to lead his team to the IPL title twice. As per Forbes India 2015 Top 100 celebrities in India, Sharma is listed 8th in terms of fame, 46th in terms of income and 12th overall