CHENNAI: The Badminton Association of India (BAI) general secretary Sanjay Mishra felt things will improve soon because several systems have been or are in the process of being implemented. He felt changes could have been made earlier but a start has been made. “Let's concentrate on the future,” he said. One such area is creating a decent perennial bench strength.
"Of late in international challenge level tournaments, some of our second string players are doing well,” he told the New Indian Express on Friday. “Today (Friday) at St. Denis International Challenge, there are some four or five quarter-finalists. Tanvi Sharma has won an international event recently. Unnati (Hooda) is another player doing well. Ayush (Shetty) had beaten the All England finalist. Young players have started performing. They will get more exposure and with that, they will be more mature and they will start performing. Within another year or two, bigger results will start coming.
“For big tournaments like the Asian Championships and Thomas and Uber Cup, we will prepare for that. We have the likes of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shettry, who are great doubles players. They are coming back from injury. In women's doubles, we have Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand. Because we have limited big players right now, so when they lose then there is a lot of negativity. They are also under tremendous pressure. Now we are banking on the doubles players and singles exponents like PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy. They will support us in the next two years. By that time, the second line should be ready. This happens in sport."
But the vacuum the country has seen have not been created over the last one year. If a proper system were to be in place, India might have avoided such a phase.
"We have to form a backup with U-15 to U-19 players. Earlier, we had two camps; one in Hyderabad and another in Bengaluru for seniors round the year. Junior camps used to be held before Asian Championships, Worlds, or during other events. Now, we have started an NCOE (National Centre of Excellence) where they will train for 365 days a year. Everyone is training and playing together and going for exposure trips as well. Juniors used to train in their own academies earlier. Now, we will have the line."
On lack of quality coaches, Mishra said that the BAI had a very fruitful conversation with SAI officials to address this concern. “We are inviting former players who have been Olympians, Asian or Commonwealth Games medalists to turn into coaches,” he said. “We have shortlisted 10 to 12 coaches already and SAI has given their nod and we will attach them with foreign coaches in national camps.”
With growing number of academies and organisations and foundations mushrooming, the BAI must come out with some kind of standard operation procedures to avoid interference (if any) or ambiguity in command (to players). However, Mishra looks at it positively. “We should take advantage of this,” he said. “Talented players need not come from only one or two places. They can come from multiple sources. Last year we had a grassroots-level programme where coaches from all over India had come. It was successful. We called two from each state. We want to impart proper training and guidance to grass-root players.”
Mishra did not want to delve much into whether they should have started earlier but said, 'it’s better if we focus on the future'. For now, Indian fans will be hopeful that the seniors can regain some form and get some results.
