Editorial: India gets more heroes with Thomas Cup

Could anyone imagine cricket being knocked off as the lead sports report in our dailies? Rub your eyes in disbelief all you want, but this has happened for real. All front pages on Monday splashed a badminton victory. That of the Indian men’s team winning the Thomas Cup (read world cup, more so if you’re a cricket fan) for the first time ever, reading which, every sports lover in the country stood up and cheered, WOW! It could well be a watershed moment for badminton like the country’s maiden cricket world cup victory in 1983.

The catchword here is our ‘men’ winning something as big as this.

It’s been almost 21 years since Pullela Gopichand won the All-England Open in 2001, nearly 20 years after Prakash Padukone became the first Indian to do so in 1980. Interestingly, it has only been our women ruling this space since then. Saina Nehwal, who even ruled as world no 1, became the first women’s singles player from India to win gold at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Then arrived PV Sindhu who started her journey to greatness with a bronze at the World Championships in 2013. The tall lass also won two silver medals before clinching gold in the 2019 Worlds.

In the last decade, the nation only heard of champions in the women’s segment, with something noteworthy in the men’s category occasionally scattered. Sadly, this time around the Sindhu-led team crashed out of the Uber Cup after losing 0-3 to Thailand in the quarterfinals.

Even then, the men were nowhere to be seen; till they made history on May 15. And it came with one of the biggest roars in Indian sports, a roar that may well continue to resonate as an affinity for the sport. Not just the bat and ball, Indians may well pick up a racket now. You may ask how and why? Simply because we now have champions and heroes in the sport we can emulate.

The victory was no ordinary win. Playing like one, the team made a strong statement with an emphatic 3-0 scoreline against the mighty 14-time champions Indonesia, thanks to triumphs by Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty and Kidambi Srikanth. Remember these names; you are bound to come across them time and again.

Sure, we took our time. Better late than never, right? A good 43 years after India’s previous best show in the Thomas Cup, when the team had the likes of Prakash Padukone and Syed Modi among others, lost the semifinals to Denmark. But this new lot humbled the ‘most favourites’ in style, and brought home gold and glory.

In 2018, Kidambi Srikanth became world no 1 but for a short period. Recently, youngster Lakshya Sen was the runnerup in the All England Open, so it was anybody’s guess that things would only get better. Winning the singles title is different from winning team events like the Thomas Cup, which indicates the depth of the squad. India played like a team, and with two big events coming up this year – World Championships and World Tour – there’s hope for more glory and podium finishes.

As we now have champions in both the categories, it’s high time the game gets sponsors in abundance. In the 90s, Gopichand’s mother used to call newspaper offices to give them scores of her son’s matches. Things have changed now. There’s better media coverage. The spotlight is now on the team. Bring it on, champs. ‘Yeh dil mange more’!

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