Struggle of Indian Shuttlers
Indian shuttlers are struggling hard to achieve similar successes, either in individual competitions or in the team events.
- Since becoming the best badminton team in the world by
virtue of winning the coveted Thomas Cup victory in 2022, Indian shuttlers are
struggling hard to achieve similar successes, either in individual competitions
or in the team events. Recently, the once formidable Indian women's team could
not advance beyond the group stage in the BWF Sudirman Cup held in China. All
these failures at the international level have raised serious questions about
the future of badminton in the country as the Indian talent cupboard is
virtually empty at this moment. While countries like China and some other
nations have already spotted the shuttlers to represent the country in the 2028
summer Olympics, India is still banking on old warhorses like PV Sindhu, while
Lakshya Sen seems to be the only medal hopeful in the men’s competition. On the contrary, as many as four young
talents from China have already cemented their places in the top-15. The
Chinese badminton association is hopeful that there will be more shuttlers from
the country in the top-15 in the coming days, which may ensure more than one
Olympic medal from the badminton competitions in the next games.
- But the things were totally different a couple of years ago
as for the first time in history India had managed to form strong men and women
teams with players like Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Parupalli Kashyap, Kidambi
Srikant, B Sai Praneeth, Jwala Gutta and Aswani Ponappa, etc. became household
names with their spectacular display in the international circuit. Saina Nehwal
won the first Olympic badminton medal for the country, apart from bagging
Commonwealth Championship and BWF Super Series title. She was also world’s top
ranking women badminton player for some time too. She was ably assisted by PV
Sindhu, who won silver medal in 2016 Rio Olympics and followed it by winning a
bronze medal in 2020 Tokyo Olympics and thus becoming the first Indian shuttler
to win two Olympic medals. Along with Gutta and Ponappa, these two badminton
players had formed a formidable Indian women team, which had reached the
semi-finals of the Uber Cup 2014 and 2016, a feat which India had achieved only
once way back in 1957.
- In the men’s section, Kadambi Srikanth became the second
India to become world number one after Saina Nehwal in 2018. Parupalli Kashyap,
B Sai Praneeth had established them as players of international repute. The
Indian men’s team became further stronger with the arrival of doubles duo
Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj into the scene. All of them had helped India to win
the Thomas Cup for the first time in 2022, a symbol of dominance in men’s
badminton. But it seems that Indian badminton has gone out of steam since then
and its best show was the semi-final berth of Lakshya Sen in the 2024 Olympics.
Thus, to ensure a bright future for Indian badminton, the country will have to
find new talents to match the countries like China, South Korea, Denmark, etc.
at the earliest to re-establish India’s dominance in the world badminton arena.
