Badminton Association of India recommends Kidambi Srikanth, Sai Praneeth's name for Khel Ratna Award

Olympic-bound shuttler B Sai Praneeth and Kidambi Srikanth have been nominated for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award by the Badminton Association of India. For Arjuna Award, BAI has put forward the names of HS Prannoy, Pranav Jerry Chopra, and Sameer Verma.

"This time we have given two names (Kidambi Srikanth and Sai Praneeth) for the Khel Ratna award and for Arjuna Award, we have recommended HS Prannoy, Pranav Jerry Chopra and Sameer Verma," sources within BAI told ANI.

Notably, Praneeth, who won a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championship, is the only men’s singles shuttler to have qualified for the Tokyo Games. On the other hand, Srikanth has been struggling of late but won four titles in 2017.

Meanwhile, the federation also sent applications of S Muralidharan and PU Bhaskar Babu for the Dronacharya award.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports had earlier decided to extend the last date of submission of application for the upcoming National Sports Awards 2021.

Earlier, the last date for submitting applications was June 21. The nominations/applications from the eligible sportspersons/ coaches/ entities/ universities were invited for the award and they were to be e-mailed as per an official statement from the ministry.

Manika Batra, Rohit Sharma, Vinesh Phogat, Rani Rampal, and Mariyappan Phangavelu were awarded the Khel Ratna Award last year and it was the first time that five athletes received the honour in the same year.