Indian Sports Honours: Sunil Chhetri, Pardeep Narwal, R Ashwin among athletes nominated for Best Sportsman of the Year award

What's the story?

The various nominees for the Indian Sports Honours instituted by the RP-SG Group in association with the Virat Kohli Foundation were announced on Wednesday and in the category for the Best Sportsman of the Year in team sports, there are six nominees.

Cricket players Cheteshwar Pujara, Hardik Pandya and Ravichandran Ashwin are among the names along with kabaddi player Pardeep Narwal, Indian national football team captain Sunil Chhetri and Indian hockey star Rupinder Pal Singh.

In case you didn't know

The awards RP-SG Group chairman Sanjiv Goenka and chief coach of the Indian badminton team Pullela Gopichand will chair a star-studded panel of jury. The jury also consists of tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi, athlete P.T. Usha, shooter Anjali Bhagwat and former hockey captain Arjun Halappa.

The heart of the matter

The nominees for sportswoman of the year award in team sport consist of Indian hockey stars Deepika Thakur and Rani Rampal. Cricketers Deepti Sharma, Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur are also featured on the list.

The finalists for individual sportswoman of the year award are gymnast Dipa Karmakar, athlete Lalita Babar, world number two shuttler P.V. Sindhu, Olympic bronze medalist wrestler Sakshi Malik and tennis ace Sania Mirza.

In the individual male category, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, cue sports ace Pankaj Advani, golfer S.S.P. Chawrasia, and shuttler Kidambi Srikanth are candidates for the best sportsperson of the year award.

In the team category, the Indian junior hockey team, the senior cricket, hockey and kabaddi teams and women's cricket and hockey teams are vying for the honours. For the coach of the year award, nominees are former Indian cricket coach Anil Kumble, kabaddi's Balwan Singh, gymnastics coach Bisweshwar Nandi, Indian national women's hockey team coach Harendra Singh and golf coach Vijay Divecha.

Other categories include the Emerging Sportswoman of the year, for which Aditi Ashok (golf), Ritu Phogat (wrestling), Smriti Mandhana (cricket) have been nominated. Emerging sportsman of the year nominees are hockey player Harmanpreet Singh, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, tennis player Ramkumar Ramanathan, badminton player Sameer Verma and chess grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujarathi.

What's next?

The final list will be announced and the trophy will be awarded to them during the inaugural Indian Sports Honours ceremony in Mumbai on November 11.

Sportskeeda's Take

This year's nominees are exceptional in their own right and it will be very difficult to choose the winners in each category as everyone is a winner in our book.