PM holds video call with cricket icons, top Olympic sport athletes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with 40 top sportspersons, including Sachin Tendulkar, PV Sindhu and Hima Das, via video conferencing on COVID-19 situation in the country.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday spoke to India's top athletes through video call, including cricket stars such as current captain Virat Kohli, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and batting legend Sachin Tendulkar, amid a national lockdown to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

PM held video call with cricket icons, top Olympic sport athletes

A total of 49 athletes, along with sports minister Kiren Rijiju, participated in the video call.

All sporting activities are currently shut and it is still not clear when normalcy will resume. The much-anticipated Indian Premier League is among the big-ticket Indian events suspended till April 15.

PM held video call with cricket icons, top Olympic sport athletes

Cricketers form a major chunk of the participating list. Apart from tendulkar, Ganguly and Kohli, others participated include World Cup-winning former Mahendra captain Singh Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, former pacer Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and K L Rahul.

PM held video call with cricket icons, top Olympic sport athletes

Apart from the top cricketers, Olympic silver-medallist shuttler P V Sindhu, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, chess wizard Viswanathan Anand, sprinter Hima Das, boxing stars M C Mary Kom and Amit Panghal, wrestler Vinesh Phogat, and teenage shooting sensation Manu Bhaker are among the accomplished athletes who participated in the call.

The pandemic has caused more than 50 deaths in India. The global death toll has crossed 50,000.

PTI report.