Suresh Raina urges Indian government to honour Virat Kohli with Bharat Ratna award

Former India cricketer Suresh Raina has urged the Government of India to honour legendary batter Virat Kohli with Bharat Ratna. Notably, Bharat Ratna is the highest Civilian Award in India and is granted to those with exceptional contributions in their fields. Getting Bharat Ratna award is not easy, as only those who achieve commendable accolades of their profession and put the name of the country on the world map in their own ways are given the special honour.

Virat Kohli recently retired from Test cricket, marking a closure to his 14-year-long career in the format where he played 123 matches and scored an astonishing tally of 9230 runs at an average above 46. He is also the fourth-highest run-scorer in the format for India, behind names like Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, and Rahul Dravid. Kohli is also the most successful Test captain for the Indian team, with 40 wins in 68 matches that he captained in.

"I feel the Indian government should award him the Bharat Ratna because he has achieved so many things for India," Raina told via Star Sports.

For the unversed, Kohli has been even more successful in the shorter formats of the game for the country. With more than 14,000 runs in his ODI career, the 36-year-old is only behind Sachin Tendulkar's tally of 18,426 runs from 462 games. Kohli has already surpassed Tendulkar in terms of centuries in the format, as he now has 51 hundreds against the senior pro's 49.

How many cricketers have been honoured with Bharat Ratna?

Currently, Sachin Tendulkar is the only cricketer to be bestowed with the prestigious Bharat Ratna award, which he received in 2014, a few months after his international retirement. Representing the country in 664 international matches, the Mumbai-born scored a mind-boggling 34,357 runs which also includes a century of centuries, which no other cricketer on the planet has achieved.

Apart from Tendulkar, names like Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, Lata Mangeshkar, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee are also among the few also been conferred with the highest honour. Vajpayee, who served as India's Prime Minister also has Lucknow's Ekana Cricket Stadium named after him.