Mithali Raj and R Ashwin to be recommended for India's premier sporting award

The BCCI has decided to recommend Mithali Raj and R Ashwin for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour. The board has also recommended the names of Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul and Jasprit Bumrah for the Arjuna Award, a government honour to recognise outstanding achievements in national sport.

Raj, the 38-year-old India Test and ODI captain, completed 22 years in international cricket last week. She is also the leading run-getter in women's ODIs with 7170 runs. Under her captaincy, India have reached the final of the 50-over World Cup twice, in 2005 and 2017.

Offspinning allrounder Ashwin, who is already an Arjuna awardee like Raj, has been a consistent performer for the men's Test side. He has taken 413 wickets in 79 Tests, and 150 and 42 wickets in ODIs and T20Is respectively. More recently, he impressed during India's victorious tour of Australia where he took 12 wickets in three matches, and during the series against England at home where he took 32 wickets and scored a century. He also finished the World Test Championship cycle as the highest wicket-taker with 71 strikes.

Opening batter Dhawan has scored 5977 runs in 142 ODIs, and 2315 and 1673 runs in Tests and T20Is respectively. He will be captaining India in the upcoming limited-overs series in Sri Lanka too.

Rahul, who has become one of the most important white-ball batters for the team in the last few years, has 2006 runs in Tests and 1509 and 1557 runs in ODIs and T20Is respectively.

And Bumrah, who has rapidly risen up the ranks to become one of India's premier fast bowlers, has 83, 109 and 59 wickets in Tests, ODIs and T20Is respectively in his five-year-long international career so far.