Courtesy: BCCI/Google
Suresh Raina, the former Indian cricketer, has made a big statement about honouring his former teammate Virat Kohli with the Bharat Ratna award during a show on the Star Sports network. The 38-year-old stated that Virat Kohli has a number of achievements to his name while playing the sport, doing exceptional things for India and Indian cricket, for which he should get conferred with the highest civilian award in the country.
Notably, in the Indian history, only one sportsperson has been honoured with the Bharat Ratna award, and it is none other than the Master Blaster, Sachin Tendulkar, who carried the burden of the nation on the field of cricket for the better part of 25 years. After the Bharat Ratna award was created in the year 1954, there have been a total of 53 individuals, who have been conferred with it, 18 of them posthumously.
Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket last week ahead of the five-match series in England
During the build-up to the match 58th of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 between Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Suresh Raina made the plea to award the Bharat Ratna to Virat Kohli. While the highly anticipated contest on the return of IPL 2025 following a one week suspension ended up getting abandoned at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru due to persistent rain, the statement from Raina on Kohli made the headlines.
He was quoted as saying, as per Times of India, “Virat Kohli ne jitni upalabdhiyan haasil ki hain, Bharat aur Bharatiya cricket ke liye unhone jo bhi kiya hai, uske liye unhein Bharat Ratna se sammaanit kiya jana chahiye. Bharat sarkar ko unhein Bharat Ratna award dena chahiye (The number of achievements Virat Kohli has accomplished, and whatever he has done for India and Indian cricket, for that he should be honoured with the Bharat Ratna. The Government of India should give him the Bharat Ratna award).”
It was just last week when Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket ahead of the five-match series in England, ending his remarkable career, which saw him play 123 matches, scoring 9,230 runs at an average of 46.85 with 30 hundreds.
