Indian badminton's one academy policy is dangerous

The Prakash Padukone Academy’s decision to close down its Pune feeder centre due to lack of talent and need for better fund management must have come as a surprise to many badminton followers. After all Pune was the only centre of the Bangalore-based academy to produce national and international level stars from the grass-root level in its 12-year existence. Since the Padukone academy came into existence in 1996, top-level training activities were concentrated only in Bangalore for almost a decade with the Pune centre working as a lone feeder centre since 1999. But the last few years have been difficult for the centre with no new stars on the horizon, forcing the academy administration to shut shop and look northward for talent. Though, the decision could be termed drastic, it has many lessons to be learnt for the badminton administrators in the country. [caption id=“attachment_75575” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Gopichand has done a good job but he has his hands full now. AFP”]  [/caption] The very first being that – putting all eggs in one basket may work wonderfully in a short span but can be detrimental to the growth of the sport in the long term. We have seen many examples of top teams going into a slump when the decision makers do not give importance to long term planning and concentrate on just a small pool of talent that is producing results. The trend is more profound in team sports like cricket and football when the core of a champion team retires or leaves at regular intervals and there is no succession plan in place. Anyone following the English Premier League this season does not need to look beyond former champions Arsenal, who are struggling to keep pace with competition for the last few years since the manager did not invest in new talent when the top stars were still around and providing the desired results. In cricket, a team like Australia suffered after the retirement of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and are still struggling to re-build the squad. The story could be similar for India after the experienced quartet of Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Virendra Sehwag hang their boots and the Test series in England should have given the cricket administrators enough indications of that threat. While it is understandably difficult to create a foolproof succession plan in a team sport as they cannot afford to compromise on the results, the process can be relatively simple and all the administrators need to do is broad base their talent hunt program. Badminton powerhouse China is a prime example of how a country can maintain a steady flow of world-class talent by building a network of zonal and regional coaching centres as a supply line to the national centre. Thousands of aspiring stars train at these zonal centres with just about five per cent of them making it to the national camp. In contrast, badminton activity in India tends to concentrate only in one or two centres depending on where the power lies. Till 2004, Bangalore was the go to place. But since Pullela Gopi Chand took over as the national coach, Hyderabad has become the epicentre with all the top stars training at the Gopichand Badminton Academy. [caption id=“attachment_75576” align=“alignleft” width=“250” caption=“The Padukone academy is facing hard times. AFP”]  [/caption] Today, there are about 40 full time trainees at the Academy and Gopi Chand was forced to deny admission to many other candidates since it is difficult to provide the same level of training to a bigger pool of players with the available resources at hand. Almost all these 40 players are from the same age group and since they would be around for another few years, there is little chance that Gopi Chand and his team would have much time to groom new talent. If India has to sustain the progress it has shown in the last few years, the Badminton Association of India needs to step out of their comfort zone and create a system of grooming talent across the country. While zonal academies are the right way forward, the association cites lack of funds to kick-start the initiative. However, an alternative plan of action could be to promote setting up private academies in different part of the countries and given them the status of zonal centres. This way, BAI and the national coach can monitor the training at these academies and at the same time create a bigger pool of coaches capable of giving proper training to budding shuttlers. All it needs is a will to decentralise power and a vision for the future.