Indian cricket team captain Sunil Gavaskar sided with Badminton legend Prakash Padukone for his comments following Lakhya Sen’s defeat in the Paris Olympics.
Following the defeat of Lakshya Sen against Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia, Padukone urged the players to take responsibility after India could not claim a single Olympic medal in badminton at the Paris Games. This is the first time India has not won even one medal in badminton since 2008.
Sen lost two back-to-back matches in the Games, first against eventual gold medalist Viktor Axelsen and then for bronze against Zii Jia. Sen had won the first set and was leading 8-3 in the second before Zii Jia made a comeback and won the second and then the last set.
Following the match Padukone said that the players had to take responsibility for the defeat and not delivering results. He added that the government had given all the support to prepare for the Olympics. Padukone’s comment faced backlash and criticism including from shuttler Ashwini Ponnappa.
Against this backdrop, in a column for Sportstar, Gavaskar hailed Padukone as the “finest sportsperson that India has produced”. Following this, Gavaskar went on to show his support for Padukone stating that the Indian contingent is good at making excuses and that if it were a discipline at the Olympics they would have a gold medal.
Gavaskar said that the comments made by Padukone that today’s players get “all the backing and facilities from their Federations and the government too. Therefore, they should take responsibility for their performances,” was “a point well-made and well-articulated”. He also added that the comment did not point fingers at anyone.
“Our country, which again is a champion at reading between so-called lines and imagining unintended poisoned arrows, we were quick to jump on him and denounce his comments,” Gavaskar wrote criticising the the backlash Padukone faced.
He also went on to say that Sen had lost his concentration in the way during the last two matches and called him “garden mein ghoomne wala”, a phrase used before by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma.
In the column, he also hailed PR Sreejesh for his contributions to helping India win the bronze in hockey and said that his “determination, doggedness and never-say-die spirit rubbed off on his teammates”.