With as many as 7 Indian male badminton players in the World top 50 and 13 Indian women shuttlers in the world top 100, Indian badminton is on a roll
Even as the spotlight is permanently on our cricketers and to a lesser extent on our footballers and hockey players, it is our talented badminton players who have been quietly and surely making a mark on the world stage.
Here are some telling statistics. As many as seven Indian male badminton players feature in the top 50 players in the world, while an equally impressive 13 Indian women badminton players feature in the top 100. The male Indian shuttlers include Srikanth (2), Prannoy (11), Sai Praneeth (18), Sameer Verma (33), Sourabh Verma (34), Ajay Jayaram (35) and P Kashyap( 41), while the women shuttlers are PV Sindhu (2), Saina Nehwal ( 11), Rituparna Das (51), PC Thulasi (65), Goa's very own Anura Prabhudesai (67), S Priya (75), Shreyanshi Pardeshi (75), Reshma Karthik (75), Rasika Raje (75), Sai Uttejitha (75), Ruthvika Gadde (75), Arundati Pantawane( 75) and Tanvi Lad ( 75)
(Phew, eight players on number 75!).
In fact, the recent performances of our top players is breathtaking to say the least. Srikanth, our top male player has had an outstanding year in world badminton. He has won an unprecedented four, World Super series cups. Srikanth's form has been so prolific that he is genuinely feared by his opponents from Denmark, Korea, China and Japan.
To begin with Srikanth won the Indonesia Super Series beating Japan's Kazumasa Sakai 21-11, 21-19 in straight sets thereby becoming the first ever Indian male player to do so. Soon thereafter, he won the Australian Super Series beating China's Chen Long in straight sets 22-20, 21-16, setting an Indian record for entering three consecutive Super Series Finals.
Thereafter, he wrested the Danish Super Series by demolishing Korean player, Lee Hyun-il 21-10 and 21-5 in the final. Creditably, Srikanth rounded off the year by becoming only the fourth player in the world to win four Super Series titles in a year, winning the French Super Series by defeating Japan's Kenta Nishimoto 21-14, 21-13 in the final.
Likewise, India's top female shuttler, PV Sindhu too, has had a very successful 2016-17 albeit ending up as runners-up in four very important finals. In the 2016 Rio Olympic finals, she lost to Spain's Carolina Marin at 21-19, 12-21, 15-21, followed by a loss to Japan's Nozomi Okuhara in the 2017 World Championship finals at 19-21, 22-20, 20-22. In the 2017 Indian national finals, she went down fighting to Saina Nehwal at 17-21, 25-27 and in the most recent, 2017 Dubai World Superseries final, she lost a close match to Japan's Akane Yamaguchi at 21-15, 12-21, 19-21. Very little has separated Sindhu from her vanquishers in each of these matches. Knowing her resilience and grit, there is every chance that Sindhu will bounce back stronger in 2018.
How did this transformation take place in Indian badminton? For starters, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has distinctly become proactive. First under the leadership of the Late Akhilesh Das Gupta and presently under the tutelage of HB Sarma.
The BAI has successfully been organising the Premier Badminton League (PBL) which brings top flight international players to India, appointed Gopichand as the national head coach, engaged the services of former players like Vimal Kumar and Mohammed Arif as national coaches, recruited high quality international coaches like the Indonesian Mulyo Handoyo and the Malaysian Tan Kim Her, disbursed handsome prize money to outstanding players and pursued the sensible plan of setting up five, national level training academies across the country.
Of course BAI's decision to appoint high quality international coaches is particularly laudable. Apart from reducing the burden of head coach Gopichand, the move has started producing tangible results very quickly.
The Malaysian coach Tan Kim Her came as early as 2015 to work exclusively with our doubles players. Tan, a former Thomas Cup silver medallist for Malaysia is a very experienced coach and the results are showing. In the 2017 Sudirman Cup, the ninth ranked Indian team beat a much stronger Indonesian side.
Similarly, Mulyo Handoyo, has coached the legendary Taufik Hidayat 0f Indonesia to the Olympic gold in the 2004 Athen Games. Mulyo who is exclusively working with our best singles male players could be given the credit for our recent successes in international tournaments. The happy news is that BAI wants to bring in more international coaches from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Finally of course we must be grateful to Pullela Gopichand. Not only has the head coach groomed players of the calibre of Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Srikanth and Prannoy, but has changed the Indian badminton mind set by laying enormous emphasis on physical fitness. He is also responsible for the induction of the top-flight international coaches. Indian badminton has indeed come a long way, from the time the legendary Prakash Padukone became the first Indian, All England Champion in 1980.
