From hero to zero: The game shuttlers play

As a child who grew up in a small town, I was fed on a staple of ‘Jatak Katha’ and other juicy stories told by my grandmother while trying to put all the kids to bed at the end of the day. And if any of us was fighting over something the whole day, the story would invariably be a customised version of the story of two cats, whose fight over piece of bread/cheese, resulted in gains for a monkey. [caption id=“attachment_47637” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach became the centre of attraction in April this year when Saina announced that Babu will be her travelling coach till the London Olympics. Nicky Loh/Reuters”] [/caption] Even then, I was never convinced of the simplistic end of these stories and felt that there could be many other possibilities. Badminton coach Bhaskar Babu would vouch for the same after his journey from sudden limelight to complete oblivion in a span of six months following differences between Saina Nehwal and her mentor Pullela Gopi Chand. The Sports Authority of India (SAI) coach became the centre of attraction in April this year when Saina announced that Babu will be her travelling coach till the London Olympics. Till then, anyone had hardly noticed that the 56-year-old had been on the sidelines during almost every title triumph of the Indian shuttle queen in the last five years. Babu, who started his coaching career back in 1987 as a SAI employee, was brought into the national coaches panel when Gopi Chand took over as the national coach in 2006. His hard task master approach did not go down well with many players at the camp, but Gopi Chand utilised him well to execute the training plans he had for Saina and Kashyap during his absence or on tours. The experienced coach soon became the most trusted lieutenant of the former All England champion and it was obvious that Saina and Kashyap would have turned to him for support when they decided to part ways with Gopi Chand. In fact, Babu had got used to playing the role of the support actor to perfection ever since he was picked in the national panel by the legendary Prakash Padukone in 1997 after being impressed by the performance of his wards on the national circuit. Since then, he assisted Gopi Chand’s first coach SM Arif in the national camp and then Gopi Chand himself. Though Babu produced many national level players including the likes of former national champion Neelima Chaudhary, his most illustrious ward till date remains three-time national champion B Chetan Anand. The 2006 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist joined Babu at the age of 10 and earned his initial strips under his tutelage. However, they had an acrimonious parting soon after he won his maiden senior national crown in 2004. The talk then was that Babu was unhappy with Chetan’s relationship with Jwala Gutta and was trying to interfere in his private life as the coach felt that it was affecting the player’s performance on the court. A tiff between Gopi Chand and Saina provided Babu with his first real opportunity to get out of the shadow of the chief national coach and create a niche for himself. Though Babu took over the reins of training Saina and Kashyap from February itself – after the duo wrote a letter to SAI to depute him in Hyderabad to coach them – he continued to maintain a low profile and let the limelight be on the national coach. With a whip of a second wing to his career, Babu moved his family from Vijaywada to Hyderabad and began planning for the Olympics before everything came crashing down once the news of the tiff became public and Gopi Chand and Saina decided to work out an amicable solution. The indifferent treatment from Saina at the Sudirman Cup in China proved to be the last nail in the coffin and Babu had to pack his bags from the national camp and return to the Saroor Nagar SAI centre. Now, the man, who was literally a shadow of Saina and Kashyap on the national and international circuit since 2006, is looking after the training of 40-odd beginners, about 40 kilometres from the Gopi Chand Academy. His name was also dropped from the panel of coaches for the recent national camp and it was clear that his application for the Dronacharya award would have no backers. He has also avoided attending any national or international tournaments being played in the country since then – preferring to stick to his self-imposed exile just like he did after parting ways with Chetan. And at 56, it is unclear whether he would have the hunger to spot the right talent and produce another player of Chetan’s calibre.