A year in which he climbed two imposing peaks, it was perhaps inevitable that Tendulkar got the readers’ nod as the best Indian performer of the season. Indeed, Tendulkar’s double century in one-day international cricket and his 50th Test century were cited as the reasons by most readers who picked him as their choice. Tendulkar got 45.5 percent of the votes in the poll, finishing well ahead of his nearest rivals — athlete A C Ashwini and badminton star Saina Nehwal.
Ashwini, who dazzled at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, also had another factor going for her — being the first track and field athlete from Karnataka to win an Asian Games gold.
That, besides her superlative runs in the two big competitions of the season, played a role in elevating her to second place, ahead of Saina. Ashwini received 21.5 percent of the votes while badminton star Saina was slightly behind at 20.3 percent as the top three garnered the majority of the votes.
Other top Indian performers in a wonderful year for the country’s sport didn’t find much favour among the readers, with five-time world boxing champion M C Mary Kom, Asian Games tennis hero Somdev Devvarman and boxing gold medalist Vijender Singh just managing to make their presence felt, with three percent each of the vote share.
World chess champion Viswanathan Anand, wrestling world champion Sushil Kumar and gymnast Ashish Kumar barely caused a ripple while there were no takers for Ronjan Sodhi, despite his excellent performances all through the year.