Date:01/04/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/04/01/stories/2007040105251700.htm

Sport - Badminton

Another crisis brewing in BAI

Principal Correspondent

HYDERABAD : Another crisis is brewing in the Badminton Association of India with the country's highest ranked shuttlers — Chetan Anand (World No. 28) and National women's doubles champions Shruthi Kurien and Jwala Gutta (World No. 27) — deciding to skip the prestigious Asian Badminton Confederation championship slated to be held from April 10.

What has peeved them is the BAI's indifferent attitude towards their plea to take part in the Super Series tournaments in Singapore (April 1 to 6) and in Indonesia (April 7 to 13) at their own expenditure.

According to chief National coach Pullela Gopi Chand, the BAI selection committee reviewed the performance of all the Indian players in the recent German and the All England Open championships and decided that the shuttlers needed a six-week long preparatory camp before competing in any international event.

BAI schedule

"In fact, the BAI has chalked out a schedule featuring 10 international events in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. And so they always have a chance to come back and score crucial ranking points," Gopi Chand told The Hindu. "It is a fact that these players do miss out some important ranking points by not playing in the above Super Series events," he said.

However, the three shuttlers contend that by mere appearance in the first round of the Super Series events (which they were forced to skip), they would have earned crucial points. "What is the problem for the BAI if we go on our own and try to improve our ranking," they argued.

And, as a sequel to these developments, the on-going camp at the Gachibowli indoor stadium under the supervision of Gopi Chand with Indonesian coach Hadi Idrif assisting him for the last 10 days, has suffered a setback of sorts.

Separate training

These three prominent shuttlers along with Nikhil Kanetkar, the second highest-ranked player from India (World No. 45) have decided to train separately at Fateh Maidan Indoor Stadium where S.M. Arif is back to his familiar job at the request of some of these players.

That the BAI president B.K. Varma will be visiting the national camp in the city to personally interact with all the players and to sort out any problems, is a fair indication that all is not well in the BAI ahead of a crucial year in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.