BANGALORE: With the Sudirman Cup hardly a fortnight away, it is debatable whether India is fielding a strong team for the event. The answer, in the light of the recent developments in Indian badminton, is a firm no.

With Chetan Anand, his wife Jwala Gutta and her doubles partner Shruthi Kurien ruled out of the team on grounds of `indiscipline' for non-attendance at the camp in Hyderabad, the team is indeed depleted. There are also reports that Rupesh Kumar, the doubles player is nursing an injury and that means his partner Sanave Thomas would have to combine with V. Diju, who would take on the load in the mixed doubles as well.

With Shruthi and Jwala Gutta on the sidelines, the onerous task of keeping the Indian flag flying high in mixed doubles has fallen on the young pair of Ashwini Ponnappa and Nitya Sosale. Though the pair is highly talented and full of promise, it is debatable if they are good enough at the international level. Of course, there is no doubt about the ability of the singles players Anup Sridhar (men) and Saina Nehwal (women), but they alone cannot pull India through.

BAI certainly has the right to insist that players attend camps for major events, but the duration and timing of the camp had affected players like Chetan Anand and Anup Sridhar, playing in the Super Series events at Singapore and Indonesia, even on their own. BAI's refusal to send their entries had further aggravated the situation with a peeved Chetan, along with Jwala and Shruti pulling out of the ABC event.

While the three players had argued that their points were at stake, BAI stood firm on its stand that there were enough Super Series tournaments to regain any lost points. A possible solution was very much in the offing when Prakash Padukone suggested a three-point formula. He felt that the BAI should stick to the original team announced in March, which included Chetan, Jwala and Shruti. He had further suggested that there ought to be no curbs on players participating in Open tournaments and camps should be of shorter duration and should not clash with tournaments schedule.

Padukone's formula, if it had been taken in the right spirit, could have shown the way to end the impasse, but it didn't materialise.

Mandatory attendance

According to badminton sources, BAI is willing to make concession by maintaining that the mandatory attendance of camps would stay in place till the Indian Open in September and not beyond. But any such assurance had to be inked by BAI and players might not take anything at face value.

Badminton essentially is an individual game and the players have the right to train on their own and BAI can possibly insist on a mandatory camp only for major championships, especially team contests such as Thomas Cup, Uber Cup, World championship and Sudirman Cup and not for every Grand Prix, Super Series or Open tournaments.

The need of the hour is a little more flexibility.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail