The Indian Badminton Story

“Story was crucial to our evolution, more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on, story told us what to hang on to,” the writer had said. And the more one thinks about it, the more one would feel the flagrant disregard we have shown towards it.

India’s recently-concluded Sudirman Cup campaign would be a perfect example to analyze it for beginners. Without a doubt, India’s biggest chance of the tournament rested largely in Sameer Verma’s hands in the second group match, when he was up against Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia. India needed to win just three matches to progress after Malaysia had already lost to China on the previous day.

While the victory against China was near impossible for this Indian side, fate did give them a fighting chance over the five-match tie. Despite facing the World No.7 men’s doubles pairing, the Indian men’s duo of Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won the first game to everyone’s surprise. The women’s pairing of Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy, too, was in a glorious place to level the match after they were leading 11-5 against World No.2 Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan.

India lost on both the occasions but more than the defeat it was the inevitability of the outcome that is worrying. The fans knew that the happenings were too good to be true and China would come back, no matter how much they trailed; and it happened. When India appointed Flandy Limpele and Park Tae Sang in their coaching staff, one of their major concerns was to instil confidence in the players that they could keep going on the biggest of stages. Alas! It was nowhere to be found.

If Sindhu is honest, she would tell you that since her 2016 Olympic Games silver medal, the feat that got her more followers than ever was the 2017 BWF World Championships where the Indian went at Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara relentlessly for 105 minutes and although she ended up as the second best, the heart-swelled Indian fans couldn’t care less about the result. That clash would be narrated for generations to come.

Sindhu had reached three more semi-finals and five finals of major tournaments over the next one year or so and she would win only once. It is as if the celebrity culture seemed to engulf her so much that settling for second best spot had become a normalcy. India’s Commonwealth Games success was no doubt a great one but even the contingent would agree that they were hardly challenged by the opponents. And as far as the Asian Games was concerned, the loop kept circling with another final resulting in a hopeless inevitable defeat for Sindhu while others perished.

Saina Nehwal isn’t shining either but age is catching up and her recent surgeries have only slowed her down. But, the once blue-eyed girl of Indian badminton still shows sparks here and there and although she is staring at retirement in the next few years, there’s a belief that the 29-year-old could swing some major upset in the Tokyo Olympics.

Unfortunately, India’s strength, even if taken the likes of B Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy, ends in their singles. Despite the promises that Sikki Reddy and Rankireddy have shown from time to time, the doubles category has been just dismal for India to put it mildly. Nations like Indonesia, Japan, Chinese Taipei, and many others, on the other hand, refusing to halt at a benchmark.