India’s best-performing athletes were conferred with the national sports awards by President Droupadi Murmu in a regal ceremony on Tuesday where cricketer Mohammed Shami walked into rapturous applause at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Shami was honoured with the Arjuna Award by President of India Droupadi Murmu in New Delhi on Tuesday. He was conferred with the honour at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Arjuna Award is the second-highest sporting honour of India after the Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had recommended Shami’s name following his exceptional performance in the ODI World Cup 2023.
Shami had emerged as the leading bowler in the 2023 World Cup, picking 24 wickets in just seven matches.
Other sporting bigwigs who were chosen for the Arjuna award this year were wrestler Antim Panghal, a former junior world champion and bronze-winner at the senior event last year, boxer Mohammad Hussamuddin (bronze-winner at last year’s world championship), and para archer Sheetal Devi.
Arjuna Award Winners 2023:
Ojas Pravin Deotale (archery), Aditi Gopichand Swami (archery), Murali Sreeshankar (athletics), Parul Chaudhary (athletics), Mohammad Hussamuddin (boxing), R Vaishali (chess), Mohammed Shami (cricket), Anush Agarwalla (equestrian), Divyakriti Singh (equestrian dressage), Diksha Dagar (golf), Krishan Bahadur Pathak (hockey).
The other names are Sushila Chanu (hockey), Pawan Kumar (kabaddi), Ritu Negi (kabaddi), Nasreen (kho-kho), Pinki (lawn bowls), Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (shooting), Esha Singh (shooting), Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (squash), Ayhika Mukherjee (table tennis), Sunil Kumar (wrestling), Antim Panghal (wrestling), Naorem Roshibina Devi (wushu), Sheetal Devi (para archery), Illuri Ajay Kumar Reddy (blind cricket), Prachi Yadav (para canoeing).
