Dhoni pips Virat Kohli in most admired man list in India; Mary Kom most admired woman

1. MS Dhoni

Among sportsmen, MS Dhoni is the most admired in India with a score of 8.58 per cent and is only behind PM Modi who gathered a score of 15.66 per cent. Dhoni has retired from Test cricket in 2015 and is currently not part of any India side in the limited over versions too. The Jharkhand man is taking a break until November from top flight cricket amidst rumours about his retirement.

2. Virat Kohli

Kohli is arguably the best batsman across all formats averaging over 50 in Test, ODI and T20I versions. He has 43 ODI hundreds and 23 Test hundreds to boot with. He has not yet made a T20I hundred. But in the scale of admiration he stood at 7th with a score of 4.46 per cent. Sachin Tendulkar is 6th in the survey with 5.81 per cent votes.

3. Who are ahead of Kohli

Apart from Tendulkar, businessman Ratan Tata (8.02%), former US President Barack Obama (7.36%), Bill Gates (6.96%) are ahead of Kohli in the admiration index. Among footballers, Portugal and Juventus talisman Cristiano Ronaldo is the most admired in India with 2.95 per cent votes followed by Argentina and Barcelona player Lionel Messi who bagged 2.32 per cent votes. Messi had recently pipped Ronaldo to win the FIFA Best Player award.

4. Mary Kom most admired woman

Boxer MC Mary Kom, a winner of multiple world titles, is the most admired woman in India and has gained 10.36 per cent votes and she is the only woman sports personality to make the list as PV Sindhu, Hima Das, Saina Nehwal and Sania Mirza failed to make the cut.