Happy with a bronze? Coaches leave a lot to be desired

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) and the coaching staff cannot stop rejoicing after the country bagged its first-ever mixed team medal for the squad in the Badminton Asia Confederation’s Youth (under-19) championship in Lucknow this month.While the achievement is worth appreciating, the general sentiment among the players after the team championship was of disappointment as they felt that the team did not go for broke and the coaches were satisfied with just a ‘bronze’.Immediately after India thrashed Chinese Taipei 3-0 to book their semifinal berth, the coaching staff sprang a surprise by announcing that the top two singles players will be rested and a scratch boy’s doubles combination would be fielded for the last four match against China.[caption id="attachment_39429" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="So content were the coaches with a bronze that they decided to rest promising names like PV Sindhu (above) and Sameer Verma saying they were potential medal winners in the individual events and needed some rest before the start of the competition."][/caption]The logic given was that PV Sindhu and Sameer Verma were potential medal winners in the individual events and needed some rest before the start of the competition. There was no explanation given for fielding Shivam Sharma and N Venkatesh in the men’s doubles despite the coaches knowing fully well that the duo had never played together before.However, the players were not willing to buy the logic of their coaches and a couple of them were quick to throw tantrums at the coaching staff with one player even accusing them of “bronze mil gaya to baas ho gaya kya? (Are you happy with just a bronze?)”India eventually lost 0-3 to China and there was no guarantee that the result would have been any different had Sameer and Sindhu been fielded. It just so happened that in the individual championship, Sameer defeated the very same players (Guo Kai) whom he would have faced in the team championship singles rubbers while Sindhu also got the better of one of the Chinese shuttlers in the quarterfinal. And had they managed a similar result then, the hosts could have been actually challenging for the title.But what is more disconcerting is that the coaches and the administrators are not in sync with the ambitions of the new generation of players, who are just not satisfied with a bronze or mere international participation.The earlier generation of players, with a few honourable exceptions, used to concede defeat even before taking the court against players from China and other badminton powerhouses and it did not really matter whether they played the top stars from those countries or rank outsiders. It was the fear factor that played a bigger role and the players and coaches used to think alike on the issue.In fact, during the 2006 Thomas Cup in Tokyo, Japan, BAI had booked the return flight of the Indian team on the last day of the league stage without even being aware that the tournament format had changed and everyone had to play at least one knockout round. The Indian team surprised everyone by reaching the quarterfinals and the then chief national coach U Vimal Kumar had to change the flight bookings after every round.Even today, the BAI does not believe in sending the team early for major events so that the players can acclimatise to the courts and the weather there.A few years ago, many players in the country were only bothered about making it to the Indian team and the international tournaments were treated more as pleasure trips.But just being in the team does not satisfy the current crop and the success of Saina Nehwal on the international stage has given them the self-belief that they can be world-beaters as well.It is now important that the coaches and the administrators also think the same way, if India has to stake claim to being a badminton powerhouse.