Asian Badminton Championship | HS Prannoy, B Sai Praneeth blame BAI after missing out

Asian Badminton Championship | HS Prannoy, B Sai Praneeth blame BAI after missing out

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HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth have blamed the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and said that administrative mistakes by the association have barred them from participating in the tournament. Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma are the two Indians in the men’s singles for the Championship.

With the Asian Badminton Championship starting from today in Wuhan, China, a new controversy has emerged in the Badminton Association of India (BAI). India’s two top male shuttlers - Prannoy and Sai Praneeth have alleged that some goof-ups by the administrative department of the national body have resulted in both of them not getting an entry into the prestigious tournament. 

“According to the process, Badminton Asia confederation sent the allocations informing who are the players who all have qualified from a country. All other countries like Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia have four entries even though Indonesia and Malaysian players are ranked way below me and Praneeth,” Prannoy told PTI.

“So I enquired about the rules and came to know BAI didn’t reply to the e-mails confirming our entries,” added the 26-year-old, who had won a bronze at the last edition.

On the other hand, the association has made it clear that the Asian body had asked only for two names and the BAI sent the names of Srikanth and Verma as per the recent BWF rankings. The badminton national body has also released a statement after the allegations made by the two players.

“Based on the e-mail received from Badminton Asia, we were asked to send names of two players each for Men Singles, Women’s Singles; three names each for Men’s and Women’s doubles and 4 players for mixed doubles. And the draw that was published based on the World Ranking of players dated week of February 26, 2019, mentioned Kidambi Srikanth (World Ranking 6) and Sameer Verma (World Ranking 11) in the main draw as per the ranking eligibility list published by Badminton Asia and the same was followed to send the players for the Championships,” the BAI said in a statement.

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