New Delhi: Former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, along with champion cueist Pankaj Advani on Thursday were awarded the Padma Bhushan, which the country’s third highest civilian award.
Saikhom Mirabai Chanu, who was the World Weightlifting Champion in the 48kg category last year and tennis player Somdev Devvarman who is an Asian Games gold medalist were conferred the Padma Shri award.
The other recipients of the Padma Shri were ace Indian shuttler Kidambi Srikanth and Murlikant Petkar, who is India’s first Paralympic gold medalist.
Petkar won an individual gold medal in the 1972 Summer Paralympics held in Heidelberg, Germany where he set a world record at 37.33 seconds in the 50m freestyle swimming event. He had also made it to the finals of javelin, precision javelin throw and slalom in the same games.
Dhoni, who has been one of India’s most successful captains needs no introduction. He is the only Indian skipper to have won all three ICC trophies ( T20 World Cup in 2007, 50-over World Cup 2011 and the Champions Trophy in 2013). Under his captaincy, India attained the number one position in Test cricket in 2009.
On an individual level, Dhoni has been one of India’s most decorated cricketers with ICC ODI Player of the Year awards in 2008 and 2009 which also made him the first player to win the honour twice. In 2007, he had received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and he was awarded the Padma Shri-India’s fourth highest civilian award in 2009.
Pankaj Advani, who is a multiple time world champion has had an illustrious career where he won the gold medals at the Asian Games in Doha (2006) and Guangzhou (2010).
Kidambi Srikanth, who is one of India’s stars in badminton had a phenomenal 2017 where he ended up six titles in all, which included four Super Series titles.
He had won the French Open, Denmark Open, Australian Open, Indonesia Open, China Open and India Open. Srikanth, who currently trains under coach Pullela Gopichand also was the runners-up in the Singapore Open last year.
Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu had won a silver medal in the 48kg category in Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.
Last year, she had won the gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships in the United States by lifting a world record of 194 kg in total (85 kg snatch and 109 kg clean and jerk).