# List of National Sports Award recipients in cricket

The National Sports Awards is the collective name given to the six sports awards of Republic of India. It is awarded annually by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. They are presented by the President of India in the same ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan usually on 29 August each year along with the national adventure award. As of 2020, a total of sixty-seven individuals have been awarded the various National Sports Awards in cricket. The four awards presented in cricket are Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award, Dhyan Chand Award and Dronacharya Award.
First presented in the year 1961, a total of fifty-six individuals have been honoured with the Arjuna Award in cricket for their "good performance at the international level" over the period of last four years First presented in the year 1986, a total of seven coaches have been honoured with the Dronacharya Award in cricket for their "outstanding work on a consistent basis and enabling sportspersons to excel in international events" over the period of last four years, with two coaches being awarded in the lifetime contribution category. First presented in the year 1997–1998, a total of four sportspersons have been honoured with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the highest sporting honour of India, in cricket for their "most outstanding performance at the international level" over the period of last four years.

## Recipients

As of 2020, four cricketers have been awarded the highest sporting award, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna. The first recipient was Sachin Tendulkar, considered one of the greatest batsmen of all time according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the first cricketer to score 100 centuries in international competition. He was presented with the Arjuna Award in the year 1994 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in the year 1997–1998. He is also the highest run scorer of all time in International cricket and the first sportsperson to be awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award in 2014.
The second recipient, MS Dhoni, is the former captain of the Indian national team in limited-overs formats from 2007 to 2016 and in Test cricket from 2008 to 2014. Under his captaincy, India won the inaugural 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. He was a wicket-keeper and one of the highest run scorers in One Day Internationals of all time. He was presented with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in the year 2007. In 2016, a sport biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story based on his life was released.
The third recipient, is Virat Kohli. He is considered the best batsman of the current generation. A generational talent. Was icc player of the year multiple times. Currently, Kohli is the 4th leading run-scorer of all time with close to 27324 runs, and has notched up 81 international hundreds. In 2020, the ICC had named Kohli the Player of the Decade. He is considered greatest Test captain of India,with most wins as a captain of India, with 40 wins out of 68 matches and revolutionized the team mindset and started winning Away series in his captaincy and by brilliance of his batting. He has most ODI centuries in world with 50 centuries.
Rohit Sharma , the fourth recipient , the current cricket captain in all formats, hit 264, the highest individual score in ODI format. He also became the first and only cricketer to hit 5 centuries in a single World Cup during 2019 World Cup. He is also the only cricketer to hit three double centuries in an ODI.
Key :
* + Indicates a Lifetime contribution honour
List of National Sports award recipients, showing the year, award and gender :
| Year | Recipient | Award | Gender |
| 1997–1998 | Sachin Tendulkar | Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna | Male |
| 2007 | Mahendra Singh Dhoni | Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna | Male |
| 2018 | Virat Kohli | Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna | Male |
| 2020 | Rohit Sharma | Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna | Male |
| 2021 | Mithali Raj | Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna | Female |
| 1961 | Salim Durani | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1964 | Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1965 | Vijay Manjrekar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1966 | Chandu Borde | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1967 | Ajit Wadekar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1968 | E. A. S. Prasanna | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1969 | Bishan Singh Bedi | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1970 | Dilip Sardesai | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1971 | Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1972 | B. S. Chandrashekhar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1972 | Eknath Solkar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1975 | Sunil Gavaskar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1976 | Shantha Rangaswamy | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1977–1978 | Gundappa Viswanath | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1979–1980 | Kapil Dev | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1980–1981 | Chetan Chauhan | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1980–1981 | Syed Kirmani | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1981 | Dilip Vengsarkar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1982 | Mohinder Amarnath | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1983 | Diana Edulji | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1984 | Ravi Shastri | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1985 | Shubhangi Kulkarni | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1986 | Sandhya Agarwal | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 1986 | Mohammad Azharuddin | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1989 | Madan Lal | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1993 | Kiran More | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1993 | Manoj Prabhakar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1994 | Sachin Tendulkar | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1995 | Anil Kumble | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1996 | Javagal Srinath | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1997 | Sourav Ganguly | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1997 | Ajay Jadeja | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1998 | Rahul Dravid | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 1998 | Nayan Mongia | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2000 | Venkatesh Prasad | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2001 | VVS Laxman | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2002 | Virender Sehwag | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2003 | Mithali Raj | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2003 | Harbhajan Singh | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2005 | Anju Jain | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2006 | Anjum Chopra | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2009 | Gautam Gambhir | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2010 | Jhulan Goswami | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2011 | Zaheer Khan | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2012 | Yuvraj Singh | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2013 | Virat Kohli | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2014 | Ravichandran Ashwin | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2015 | Rohit Sharma | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2016 | Ajinkya Rahane | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2017 | Harmanpreet Kaur | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2017 | Cheteshwar Pujara | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2018 | Smriti Mandhana | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2019 | Ravindra Jadeja | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2019 | Poonam Yadav | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2020 | Deepti Sharma | Arjuna Award | Female |
| 2020 | Ishant Sharma | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2021 | Shikhar Dhawan | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2023 | Mohammed Shami | Arjuna Award | Male |
| 2018 | Tarak Sinha $^+$ | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 2019 | Sanjay Bhardwaj $^+$ | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 2021 | Sarkar Talwar $^+$ | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 2022 | Dinesh Jawahar Lad $^+$ | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 1986 | Desh Prem Azad | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 1987 | Gurcharan Singh | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 1990 | Ramakant Achrekar | Dronacharya Award | Male |
| 2004 | Sunita Sharma | Dronacharya Award | Female |
| 2016 | Rajkumar Sharma | Dronacharya Award | Male |