Unassertive Kidambi Srikanth remains helpless India’s biggest hope

Tenacious, dogged, and most importantly, power play. India had announced their new generation of shuttlers riding on attributes that most badminton greats hardly aspired to acquire. The subtle sport, which requires skill, anticipation, and stamina, over everything else to succeed, saw two towering athletes with brute strength dominating the circuit in 2016 – Srikanth and PV Sindhu.

However, while it demanded sympathy from one and all for the blue-eyed boy of Indian men’s badminton back then, it cannot anymore. “Injuries are a part of the game”, is practically the biggest cliché in the sporting world and if Srikanth was, as many believed, that good, then he should have been up and reaching for his best in the two years following that.

But, while the dents in his career might have slowed him down in terms of numbers at times, the Argentine has hardly lost his golden touch whenever he has been back on the field. Hence, to assume that Srikanth’s injury was the only Kryptonite that hindered his glittering career and stopped him from achieving greatness would be foolery.

A one-season wonder would be a more suitable term, as it has seemed over the past two years. Quite interestingly, while Srikanth became only the fourth player in the world to win four men's singles Superseries titles in the 2017 calendar year, he also failed to make it to semis of the other three biggest tournaments of that year. He was ousted in the quarters of the World Championships, the round-robin stage of the Superseries Finals, and a further exacerbating pattern would be the first-round exit in the All England Open.

Barring the India Open, where Srikanth reached the final only to lose to Viktor Axelsen, he hasn’t reached the semis of the nine other tournaments that he has competed in 2019. A prime reason has been his dismal record against the top five, who has risen magnificently since Srikanth’s quadruple in 2017. 

Srikanth’s only positives would be against young Shi Yuqi, who is the current world No. 3 and has lost three out of four times to Srikanth and Indonesia’s Jonathan Christie, who has a 4-4 head to head with the Indian World No. 10. To further paint a dismal picture of his situation, Srikanth has also been eliminated by the likes of World No. 7 Son Wan Ho, 33rd ranked Shesar Hiren Rhustavito, 11th ranked NG Ka Long Angus, 30th ranked HS Prannoy, and 29th ranked Khosit Phetpradab. And this came in a year where the shuttler claimed to be injury-free.

Srikanth could remain No.1 for just one week since April 12, 2018, seeing a sharp fall in grace thereafter, and has seemingly been feeding off those accolades. And for India, who are more anticipated than ever before an Olympics event, getting represented by Srikanth despite everything would hardly do justice. 

Having drawn half parallels to India cricket great MS Dhoni for his slow starts to a match, the 25-year-old enjoys a similar blessing like the Jharkhand born legend – having no competition whatsoever for his position in the squad. Hence, the mercy entirely falls upon the players, who would need to take the onus and to do better for the nation. 

While the World Championships would be a litmus test for many in the Indian contingent, for Srikanth it would be a stage where he will try to refute claims of the Guntur-born being a one-season wonder. And it would be quite realistically possible, for the highest-seeded opponent that he could be playing in his draw before the quarters would be 12th ranked Kantaphon Wangcharoen of Thailand.