Hope restored: Asiad bronze is a huge achievement for Indian badminton

This is huge! What a start for India’s women’s badminton team as they won a bronze medal in the women’s team event at the Asian Games in Incheon yesterday. Though our team went down fighting against South Korea in the semis, it was the quarter final tie that was the clincher. India defeated the Thailand 3-2 ending a 28-year wait for a medal of any colour at the Games. Indian badminton has seen a surge of spectacular performances in the past four or five years. We’ve enjoyed success at all the major events such as the Olympics, World Championships, CWG and Thomas/Uber Cups. Only at the Asian Games we were found wanting. [caption id=“attachment_1723577” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  India defeated the Thailand 3-2 in the quarter-finals ending a 28-year wait for a medal of any colour at the Games. PTI[/caption] To be honest, I had my reservations about this team winning a medal due to the absence of our star doubles specialist Jwala Gutta due to injury. After all, in most of our ties, our bankable matches have been the first and second women’s singles (Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu) and the first womens doubles (Gutta & Ashwini Ponnappa). Though wounded by Jwala’s absence, this unit played like true warriors and seized their opportunity. Saina and Sindhu did their bit winning their singles matches and getting India off to a great start against Thailand, with Saina beating Ratchanok Intanon, the 2013 world champion. But we went on to lose the next two matches. Enter Ashwini Ponnappa and.Sindhu. For me, they were without a doubt the heroes of the day. Both of them played outside their comfort zones to take the team past the finish line. Ashwini, was without her regular partner Jwala, and Sindhu played doubles though singles is her forte. As a scratch combination, I feel they played brilliantly to pull off a win in this tactically and temperamentally tricky deciding match. It was a superb all round performance by the Indian team who salvaged the pride they had lost after the team failed to win a medal in the mixed team event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games (CWG), where they lost to England in the semifinals then Singaapore in the brzone medal match. For the record, this is only the second time in history that the Indian Women’s team has won a medal at the Asian Games (the previous instance being a bronze at New Delhi in 1982). For badminton, the Asian Games is a very respected forum. The Games have always been very intense badminton-wise as the sport is largely dominated by the East Asians (China, Korea, Japan) and Southeast Asians (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand). Such is their stronghold on this sport that since the inception of the international team events (Thomas Cup for Men, Uber Cup for Women and Sudiraman Cup - a Mixed event), the only non-Asian country to win any of these titles was the USA (who won the Uber Cup in 1957, 1960 and 1963). In the individual events, there have been a few champions from countries such as Denmark, England and India but here too it would be safe to say that the East Asian countries rule. Therefore, despite having won many international titles herself, the frustration over the Asian supremacy was evident when Saina recently commented that she wanted the Badminton World Federation to limit the number of women’s singles players from China in all international tournaments in a bid to end their domination in the event. She said it was ‘mentally draining’ to face the Chinese juggernaut at each tournament year after year. So though the Indian shuttlers brought back four individual medals from Glasgow, no sooner had the team returned to India, the cynical whispers began as to how this was only the CWG and the true test for these players would be the World Championships at Copenhagen and Asian Games to be held in Incheon. A fortnight later, teenage sensation Sindhu brought home her second consecutive bronze medal from the World Championships beating some established players. Though all these medal winning efforts were extremely respectable and had their own standing, yet there was scepticism regarding India’s chances at the Asian Games. Now, all doubt has been laid to rest. With the individual events yet to commence, I’m sure even the cynics now are hopeful of another badminton medal for India.