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Home  » Sports » VOTE: India's Sportsperson of 2017

VOTE: India's Sportsperson of 2017

By Rediff Sports
Last updated on: December 27, 2017 09:59 IST
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Srikanth or Sindhu? Advani or Kohli?
Or will a 21 year old pip the stars?
Vote and tell us who your favourite Indian sportsperson of the year is.

India's sports fans cherished a year where Indian athletes left their mark on the world stage.

Kidambi Srikanth took Indian badminton to rare heights, winning four Super Series titles this year. He is the first Indian to achieve the feat.

P V Sindhu continued her good run, winning three titles and emerging runner-up thrice.

In cricket, it was business as usual for Virat Kohli who dominated Tests, ODIs and T20s, scoring runs aplenty. The bowlers only got some relief in December when the run machine took time off to get married.

 

There was no stopping cueist Pankaj Advani who added another couple of world titles to his kitty. He has an awesome 18 world titles in all.

Young golf prodigy Shubhankar Sharma stamped his mark among seasoned campaigners, winning three titles.

Shub won his maiden European Tour title at the Joburg Open in December to qualify for the Open Championship next July where he will play alongside his idol Tiger Woods.

Rediff.com presents the Top 5 Indian sportspersons of 2017.

Please vote at the end of the feature to select your No 1 Sportsperson of the Year.

 

Kidambi Srikanth

Kidambi Srikanth

IMAGE: Kidambi Srikanth after he won the Denmark Open title. Photograph: Scanpix Denmark/Claus Fisker via Reuters

It was a dream year for Srikanth who became the first Indian and only the fourth shuttler in the world to win four Super Series tournaments in a calendar season.

The 24 year old won the French Open, the Denmark Open, the Australian Open and the Indonesia Cup.

Before Srikanth, only badminton legend Lin Dan, his Chinese compatriot Chen Long and Malaysian star Lee Chong Wei had won four Super Series men's singles titles in a single season.

The world No 4 finished runner-up at the Singapore Open where he lost to compatriot B Sai Praneeth.

 

P V Sindhu

PV Sindhu

IMAGE: P V Sindhu celebrates a point. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

After her silver in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the world No 3 continued her glorious run, winning the India Open Super Series, the Korea Open Super Series and the Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold.

She narrowly missed out at three other events, ending up second best in the Glasgow World Championship, the Dubai Super Series final and the Hong Kong Open.

She produced a superlative performance to defeat reigning Olympic champion Carolina Marin and win her maiden India Open Super Series title in April.

In August, her gallant effort to become India's first World champion ended in a heart-wrenching 19-21, 22-20, 20-22 defeat to Nozomi Okuhara after an epic final that lasted 109 minutes.

Sindhu extracted revenge soon after, beating Okuhara in the summit clash at the Korea Open Super Series in September.

 

Pankaj Advani

Pankaj Advani

IMAGE: Pankaj Advani gets a rousing reception at Bengaluru airport after winning his 18th World Championship in Doha. Photograph: PTI

Pankaj enjoyed another stellar year on the green baize.

He won a couple of world titles, taking his world title count to a massive 18.

Pankaj also became the only Indian cueist to win the national billiards and snooker titles.

In November, he won two titles at the IBSF World Billiards and Snooker Championships in Doha.

He clinched his 17th World title after thrashing arch-rival Mike Russell in the IBSF World Billiards final. In the process, Pankaj defended the 150-up format title he won in Bengaluru last year.

With only a day's gap to switch from billiards to snooker, Pankaj outclassed Amir Sarkhosh for yet another world title.

 

Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli

IMAGE: Virat Kohli celebrates a double century. Photograph: BCCI

India's cricket captain scored 2,818 runs across all three formats in international cricket in 2017, the third highest ever in a calendar year, behind Kumar Sangakkara (2,868 runs in 2014) and Ricky Ponting (2,833 runs in 2005).

During the year he passed 51 hundreds in international cricket and equalled Sunil Gavaskar's record for most centuries by an Indian captain with 11 hundreds as skipper.

Kohli scored 10 international centuries in the year, inclusive of four Test tons and six in one-dayers.

He hit three successive centuries in the three Test series against Sri Lanka last month, including two double hundreds in a row, to finish the series with 610 runs, the most scored by an Indian in a three match series and the fourth highest overall.

In one-dayers, he scored two centuries each against New Zealand, Sri Lanka and one each against Bangladesh and the West Indies, for a tally of 1,460 runs in 26 games at an average of 76.

He also hit two half-centuries in 10 T20 Internationals this year.

Under his captaincy, India remained unbeaten in Tests in 2017, winning four successive series against Bangladesh (a one-off Test), Australia (2-1), and the away and home series wins against Sri Lanka -- 3-0 and 1-0 respectively.

In ODIs, India enjoyed a flawless run, registering five successive series wins -- England 2-1; the West Indies 3-1; Sri Lanka 5-0; Australia 4-1; New Zealand 2-1.

 

Shubhankar Sharma

Shubhankar Sharma

IMAGE: Shubhankar Sharma kisses the trophy after winning the Joburg Open. Photograph: Luke Walker/Getty Images

The 21 year old was India's golf sensation in 2017.

He enjoyed a dream run, winning three titles, including his maiden European Tour title at the Joburg Open earlier this month.

The victory made him the youngest Indian to win on the European Tour, and the fifth overall, in an elite list that includes Arjun Atwal, Jeev Milkha Singh, S S P Chowrasia and Anirban Lahiri.

Following his superb run, he has a dream opportunity to play alongside idol Tiger Woods at next year's Open championship.

'I don't know how many chances I will get to play at the biggest level,' says Shub, 'so I want to make the most of it.'

'I always wanted to play my first Major, and the Open is my favourite Major. I could not have been happier playing my first Major at the Open.'

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