Badminton Association Of India Goofs Up: Alleges HS Prannoy And Sai Praneeth
The Badminton Association Of India, allegedly had a major goof up when they robbed ace shuttlers HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth of a ticket to the Asian Badminton Championship. This allegation, however, was refuted by the BAI.
The Asian Badminton Championship started on 23rd April, and Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma represented India in the men’s singles. The event is currently ongoing in Wuhan, China. However, India’s campaign in this badminton tournament came to an end when Sameer Verma crashed out in the quarter-final match to Shi Yuqi, while Kidambi had crashed out in the first round itself.
This news came moments after the BAI announced the Indian players who would represent the country in one of the most popular badminton tournament. BAI had failed to give the names of HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth to the organisers before the tournament commenced.
“According to the process, Badminton Asia confederation sent the allocations informing who are the players who all have qualified from a country. All other countries like Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia have four entries even though Indonesia and Malaysian players are ranked way below me and Praneeth,” Prannoy told PTI. “So I enquired about the rules and came to know BAI didn’t reply to the e-mails confirming our entries,” added the 26-year-old, who had successfully bagged a bronze at the last edition.
The story took a different turn when the BAI was asked to comment on the issue. They claimed that Badminton Asia had specifically asked them to send only two entries for the men’s singles, and thus, they chose Srikanth and Verma as they were ranked higher than Prannoy and Praneeth in the world rankings.
“Based on the e-mail received from Badminton Asia, we were asked to send names of two players each for Men Singles, Women’s Singles; three names each for Men’s and Women’s doubles and 4 players for mixed doubles. And the draw that was published based on the World Ranking of players dated week of February 26, 2019, mentioned Kidambi Srikanth (World Ranking 6) and Sameer Verma (World Ranking 11) in the main draw as per the ranking eligibility list published by Badminton Asia and the same was followed to send the players for the Championships,” the BAI said in a statement.
Prannoy had been battling a gastroesophageal reflux disease since last year because of which he, has missed out on a lot of time. He missed some major tournaments last year, and the Asian Badminton Championship was a way for him to come back.
He was in good form in the last few weeks, having reached the quarterfinals at India Open, but due to this alleged goof-up, he would not have the chance to defend his semifinal ranking points.
“It happened in 2016 also. ABC was the last event for the Olympic race and me and Ajay Jayaram was also running for the Olympics. Then Kashyap and Srikanth got the entries, so that time also nobody told us. At that time also BAI didn’t confirm. Last year we all played because the guy who send the entries, Abhijit, was doing everything correctly, now I don’t know what is happening, who is missing. The system is entirely messed up.” alleged the 26-year-old.
A frustrated Prannoy also added, that next year ABC would be coming in the Tokyo qualifications, and it would be the last nail in the coffin for him if the Badminton Association Of India messes up again.
Reliable sources have also emerged which claimed that BAI did not send entries of about 10 shuttlers, including the top doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, for the New Zealand Open (April 30 to May 5). This tournament is extremely crucial since it kicks off the Olympics qualification rounds for Badminton.
Prannoy also reiterated this and claimed that 10 people had sent in their names before the deadline, yet they were denied participation. Yet also fumed that the BAI was not even apologising about it.
Satwik also had been nursing an injury and was looking to come back into the game of Badminton through the New Zealand Open. But, due to this mess up, he has decided to invest this time in other International challenger tournaments mainly in Brazil and Denmark.
Prannoy also claimed that travelling for tournaments also has become exceedingly difficult as the players mostly come to know about the ticket confirmation at the very last moment.
“The guys who are handling our entries, travelling, transporting is messing it up for the last five months since Abhijit quit BAI.
“Ticketing is done at last moment. If we are travelling on Saturday, we are getting to know on that day itself and we are getting worse flights. Why can’t they confirm our tickets five days before,” asked Prannoy?
Prannoy also started listing out the goof-ups of the BAI and said once they were stranded at the Hong Kong Airport, as the Badminton Association Of India had messed up their transport requirements
“When we went to Hong Kong for ABC mixed team event, we were stranded at the airport for two hours. There was no transportation for us because BAI didn’t send the request to the organisers,” he said.
“The BAI official sent in the transportation request for Hong Kong event in the form of Wuhan event (individual event). Can you imagine that?,” Prannoy said.
This is really been saddening times for the prestigious Badminton Association Of India. Badminton in India is on a rise with more and more people opting to take up the sport especially after the success of players like Srikanth, Saina Nehwal, P.V Sindhu and many others. Yet, if this is the way the BAI is treating their players, then it will prove to be detrimental to the future of Badminton in India.
