Mahinder Singh Dhoni, the one day and T-20 captain of the Indian cricket team has been awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award. Khel Ratna is the highest honour given to a sportsman. He is only the second cricketer after Sachin Tendulkar to have received the award. Is the decision premature or does it stem from the lack of sporting heroes?
M S Dhoni has been playing for almost three years and has a few noteworthy contibutions including winning the T-20 world cup as the captain. His career record has been great in the shorter versions of the game( one days and T-20) but he is yet to prove his mettle in the true test of character: the test matches.
There is a wide ranging debate and the consensus seems to be that Dhoni has been extremely lucky to have got the Khel Ratna much ahead of cricketing icons like Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly, Anil Kumble and Virender Sehwag.
In the recenbt past Virender Sehwag’s performances have been extremely creditable. He became the third player in the world to notch up a second triple hundred and he is in the elite company of Brian Lara and Don Bradman.
Kumble is the highest wicket taker India has produced and has won a large number of matches for India single handedly. He is one of the only two bowlers in cricketing history to have taken 10 wickets in an innings.
Sourav ganguly is credited with resurrection of Indian cricket and is hailed as the best cricket captain India has produced. He imbibed a never say die spirit in the Indian cricket team which was known to be meek, submissive and a pack of whinners before he took over as captain. He took on the Australians as a single man army and can be credited for imbuing the ‘winner matters’ spirit in the Indian team.
Rahul Dravid, the wall, has literally been the bulwark of the Indian cricket team for over a decade. He has a phenomenal record and has contributed immensely to Indian cricket.
To overlook Ganguly, Dravid, Kumble and Sehwag and award the Khel Ratna to M S Dhoni is not very judicious. The powers that be should have waited for a few more years before Dhoni could be brought to the elite company of sportspersons and Khel Ratna's like Geet Sethi, Vishwanathan Anand, Sachin Tendulkar.
And while we debate this, M S Dhoni, on a break from cricket due to fatigue(you know the endless ad campaigns and IPL), is pampering himself with a new car and a new dog in between making appearances on television shows and advertisement campaigns.
P.S. This, i had written for our department newspaper but reading a fellow blogger's views on this, i thought i could share this as well.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
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7 comments:
very well written. and i totally second u on this. the award does seem a lil premature and isnt fair on the part of the other very deserving players.
yup i think ure right too... dhoni's been good but there are definitely more deserving players...
:)way to go gal..excellently written..well i feel the same..the decision made is really premature..and waise b Dhoni hs come into action frm a lil time only whereas fr one to get an appreciation n award it needs a sufficient span of time for one to prove his/her credibility, so i guess its definately unfair tht instead of othr long term established players Dhoni bagged the award.
Dhoni not deservin but then the other grt players arent performin of late. U give someone a lifetime achievement award long after he stops actin.Here we are talkin Khel Ratna which needs to be given for current consistent performances. I leave u to ponder over this....
I agree that they haven't been performing well lately but what i meant to convey was that if they in their best years did not win the Khel Ratna, was it justified for MS Dhoni to have got it after the little success that he has had? After all cricket is played between just 10 countries of the world. Its no great shakes to win a twenty twenty world cup according to me.
I have a question - Sholay is one of my favorite films (hopefully yours too!). It won only one Filmfare Award - that too, for editing. Should I grieve over it so much that I should not appreciate any other movie now, to ever get a Filmfare?
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