Badminton needs to be nurtured

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Watching Saina Nehwal play P.V. Sindhu at the Indian Badminton League in Delhi was one of the sporting highlights for me last week. Sindhu’s bronze medal at the World Championships recently had given this contest a razor’s edge, made sharper by the 18-year-old’s eagerness to compete with Saina.
The tension on the court and the stands was palpable when the match began.
Among the spectators was finance minister P. Chidambram who had put the worries of a rapidly falling rupee on the backburner to watch this contest. My theory is that politicians who are engaged in sports work better, but that’s another story.
As it turned out Saina, after a tight first game, played sublimely to win the much-touted contest in emphatic fashion and reiterate that she is still the queen of Indian badminton. For the moment, 18-year-old Sindhu must remain a contender (pretender would be a harsh description) to the throne.
The point of this piece, however, is not the SainaSindhu rivalry even if it acquires more momentum and spice in the coming weeks and months, but the richness of Indian badminton at the current time which must be both succoured and exploited sensibly.
In the past few years, Saina has wowed the badminton world with her talent and achievements. She has been the biggest challenge to the hegemony of the Chinese which seemed unassailable at the start of this decade. Her performances and personality have made her a star and spawned interest in the sport countrywide.
At the moment, three Indian players (Saina, Sindhu and P. Kashyap) are ranked in the top 10 in the world, which is unprecedented. The better news perhaps is that a flush of young talent is set to emulate these players, several of them from former All England champion P. Gopichand’s academy from where, incidentally, all three players mentioned above come.
The key issue now is whether the IBL can trigger off mass popularity for badminton in the country. It’s a bold venture the results of which can only be known in a few years’ time.
Young badminton players get a terrific platform to showcase their talent and have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the best in the world (hopefully the Chinese and Indonesians will be seen in subsequent years). Not the least, they are getting paid handsomely.
That’s as good a start as any.