Jharkhand Sport

Jaipal Singh Munda

Jaipal Singh Munda

Cricket, Hockey and football are popular games with the people of Jharkhand. Jharkhand has given some brilliant players like Jaipal Singh, a former Indian hockey captain and Olympian and Manohar Topno, Vimal Lakra, currently playing for the Indian Hockey team. Jaipal Singh was the captain of the hockey team that won the first gold medal for India in Olympic games 1928 at Amsterdam. Mahendra Singh Dhoni who is the captain of Indian cricket team and the best wicket keeper batsman for India till date and led the Indian Cricket Team to ICC Cricket World Cup Glory on 2 April 2011 ending a 28-year wait to repeat the feat achieved by former Indian captain Kapil Dev in 1983 at Lords, England. Another rising cricketer from Jharkhand is Varun Aaron, India's fastest bowler and Saurabh Tiwary, left hand hard hitting batsman of India who represented Mumbai Indians from the 2008 Indian Premier League and currently playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore. He was one of the key batsmen in the Indian team that won the 2008 U/19 Cricket World Cup in Malaysia. Ashunta Lakra, sister of Vimal Lakra was the Indian Hockey Captain. And one of the emerging sport personality is Deepika Kumari, a young athlete who competes in the event of Archery. She won gold medal in the 2010 Commonwealth games in the women's individual recurve event.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni - Cricketer

Captain, Indian Cricket team. Under Dhoni's captaincy, India won the 2011 World Cup. Dhoni is the only captain in the ODI history to score a century while batting at No.7. He did this against Pakistan on 30th December 2012.

Deepika Kumari

Deepika Kumari - Archer

She won gold medal in the 2010 Commonwealth games in the women's individual recurve event. She also won gold medal in the same competition in the women's team recurve event along with Dola Banerjee and Bombayala Devi. Currently ranked World No. 2. She was conferred with Arjuna Award, India's second highest sporting award in the year 2012 by President of India Pranab Mukherjee.

Premlata Agarwal

Premlata Agarwal - Mountaineer

Premlata Agrawal (born 1963) is the first Indian woman to scale the Seven Summits, the seven highest continental peaks of the world. She was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2013 and Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award in 2017 for her achievements in the field of Mountaineering. On 20 May 2011, she became the oldest Indian woman to have scaled the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest (29,029 ft.), at the age of 48 years at that time while Sangeeta Sindhi Bahl hailing from Jammu and Kashmir broke her record on 19 May 2018 and became the oldest Indian woman to scale Mount Everest doing it at the age of 53. She also became the first person from Jharkhand state to scale Mount Everest.

Laxmi Padiya

Laxmi Padiya - Boxer

9th Senior Women National Boxing Championships at St. John's College, 2008 - Bronze 58th All India Police Women Boxing Championship, Pune, 2010 - Gold 11th Senior Women National Boxing Championships at Thrissur, 2010 - Silver 34th National Games (Women Boxing) 2011 at Jamshedpur, 2011 - Gold 60th All India Police Women Boxing Championship, 2012 - Gold.

Nikki Pradhan

Nikki Pradhan - Hockey Player

Nikki Pradhan (born 8 December 1993) is an Indian professional field hockey player and is a member of the Indian national team. Pradhan was the first female Hockey player from Jharkhand who represented India in the Olympics. Pradhan was included in a 16-member squad for Rio Olympics, which also marked the return of Indian women's hockey to the Olympics after 36 years after a stellar show at the Hockey World League Semifinals in 2015. Pradhan was the midfielder of the Indian Women's Hockey team. Her selection to the team made her the sixth hockey player from Jharkhand to play in Olympics, bracketing her with Jaipal Singh Munda (1928), Michael Kido (1972), Sylvanus Dungdung (1980), Ajeet Lakra (1992) and Manohar Topno (1984).

Salima Tete

Salima Tete - Hockey Player

Salima Tete impressed all with her swiftness in midfield at the Tokyo Olympics Games. Her parents recalled the days when their daughter used to star in village tournaments.

References:1.^ "Wikipedia"
        2.^ "CM Jharkhand"
        3.^ "indianexpress"