The game of Cricket is probably the most famous and popular game in India. In fact the popularity of the game is so vast that it is being compared with Religion in India. For this extraordinary popularity of the game, the Government of India also did honour the Cricket players by presenting the honourable "Arjuna Award" time to time. This is the main reason why the number of the "Arjuna Award" winning Cricket players is numerous and they are amongst the top award getting players in all the games of India. The cricketers have been successful to win the award in almost every year since the award has been incepted.

The cricketers` campaign in the winners` table of the "Arjuna Award" started from the very first year of the award`s introduction and Saleem Durani won the award for the first time on behalf of the cricketers in the year of 1961. There was a gap of three years after his win and famous cricketer Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi won it in 1964. After that there was a regular representation of the cricketers in the winners` list of the "Arjuna Award". In 1965, Vijay Manjrekar won the award and it was won by C.G. Borde in 1966. In the following year in 1967, Ajit Wadekar became the winner of the award and E.A.S. Prasanna followed him to win it in the very next year in 1968. Bishan Singh Bedi won the award in 1969.

In the decade of 1970`s, the first cricketer to win the award was D.N. Sardesai who won it in the year of 1970. Then the award was named after S. Venkataraghavan in 1971 and B.S. Chandrashekhar followed him to win the award in the year of 1972. He was joined by E.D. Solkar who won it in the same year in 1972. In 1975, famous Indian Cricketer and one of the all time greatest cricketers of the world, Sunil Gavaskar became successful to win the prestigious "Arjuna Award" in the year of 1975 and in 1976, the award went to the hands of S. Rangaswamy. In the following year in 1977-78, another great Indian cricketer G.R. Vishwanath won the award. World famous all rounder cricketers Kapil Dev Nikhanj won it in the year of 1979-80 and in 1980-81, C.P.S. Chauhan won the award. Syed M.H. Kirmani also became the winner in the same year in 1980-81 and D. Vengsarkar won the award in 1981. M. Amarnath became successful to win the award in the year of 1982 for his extraordinary performances in the cricket field and in 1983, the award went to Ms. D. Edulji. She was the first Indian women cricketer to win the "Arjuna Award".

The winning streak of the cricketers continued for few more years and Ravi Shastri was the winner of the award in 1984. In the year of 1985 Ms. S.D. Kulkarni became the winner and another women cricketer S. Agarwal won it in the very next year on 1986. Very famous Indian cricketer M. Azharuddin also claimed the award in that same year in 1986. However, the tremendous run of the cricketers in the winners` table of the "Arjuna Award" came to a temporary end when in the years of 1987 and 1988; no cricketer could win the award. The campaign started again in the year of 1989, when Madan Lal won the award and broke the dead lock for the cricketers.

After Madan Lal`s win in the year of 1989, there again came another gap of 4 years for the cricketers and in 1993, the cricketers had a double winner of the "Arjuna Award". The winners of that year were Kiran More and Manoj Prabhakar. Then the run of the cricketers again started and continued for another few years. During this time, the people of India have seen some of the all time great Cricketers of the world winning the "Arjuna Award". Amongst them, the first one was the most famous cricketer of India, Sachin Tendulkar who won it in 1994. In the year of 1995, the award went to Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath won it in 1996. Then in the year of 1997, there was again a double win for the cricketers as Ajaysinh Daulatsinhji Jadeja and Sourav Ganguly won the award.

The year of 1998 also saw two cricketers winning the "Arjuna Award" jointly. They were Nayan Ramlal Mongia and Rahul Dravid. The after a small gap of only a year, B.K. Venkatesh Prasad won it in the very first year of the new millennium that is in 2000. V.V.S. Laxman became the winner in the year of 2001 and in 2002, the winner was named as Virendra Sehwag. In 2003, there was a joint contribution from the men and women cricketers of India as Ms. Mithali Raj and Harbhajan Singh won it combinedly. Another women cricketer Ms. Anju Jain became successful to win the award in the year of 2005 .The 2007 Arjuna Award for Cricket presented to Anjum Chopra.

One thing is very clear from the discussion in this article so far that as the game of Cricket is very much popular in India and the people of India are very crazy about the success and failure of the cricketers in various international championships, there are a lot of "Arjuna Award" winning cricketers in India and this number really matches the performances of the cricketers very well.