Of one thing I am certain and that is, Boe Mathias, the Danish coach under whose guidance Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty have reached the number 2 world ranking, deserves a Bharat Ratna, nothing less.
Boe has navigated the dangerous and treacherous waters of world badminton, specially the event of men’s doubles which tests human ability to the limits, and steered his wards, tantalisingly close to that magical number, 1 in world rankings.
But this article is not about the great victories of our dynamic duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and the way they annihilated the best of oppositions, for example, they bested 1, 2 and the 5 ranked pairs in the Korean open last week to get the title. This is about the way doubles events have caught the imagination of badminton fans and young budding shuttlers out there and how the event and its practitioners were treated by the Badminton Association of India (BAI) in the near past.
Leroy D’Sa, the big daddy of the men’s doubles in the country, after, reaching legendary status by winning seven national championship titles in a fabulous career, when the national championships were the sole barometer to test the excellence of a shuttler, is an extreme fan of Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty.
“These boys with their exploits on the tour have catapulted victories in men’s doubles to brazenly push out singles from the headlines. They are rightly getting accolades and adulation from the country,” he said.
“And they are the stars of today. In our time and your time also Sanjay, you also represented India at the top world level, even after we had beaten international stars to bring laurels and respect to the country but we were hardly acknowledged.
“Another thing that is happening is that young budding players are turning to become doubles specialists. This augurs well for the country as we will soon have good and plentiful raw material for the future,” he added.
The doubles events long had been treated as poor and distant cousins of the singles.
The BAI for some time, selected national squads for international events after performance in singles. This was irrespective of the fact that the majority of top world-level tournaments in team championships, had three doubles and two singles in format. Take Thomas and Uber Cups, CWG and Asian team championships, and the Sudirman Cup have a doubles event.
Yet the BAI in those years did not bother about such niceties and merrily went on with their concept of badminton.
So let us see how in the national championships the doubles legends fared. Leroy won seven titles and dominated the event. Five titles were won by Romen Ghosh, and Nandu Natekar and Jessel Ismai. Four titles were won by Partho Ganguly.
On the women’s side, there were some huge names. Jwala Gutta won an astonishing 14 titles and Ami Ghia, with her graceful and lovely strokes, has seven in her kitty. But Madhumita Bisht has an amazing 20 titles in the mixed doubles and nine in the women’s doubles.
Yet it is Prakash Padukone whose record nine singles titles are admired and discussed. The media is also to blame for keeping doubles in the shadows. They did not cover doubles events with the same zeal and focus. They analysed singles matches threadbare and with authority, but doubles was always an aftermath.
In fact, mostly the doubles coverage was just by giving the scores at the end of the report. The BAI too talked about only the singles.
The sports ministry also was a culprit. Former Asian and national champion Dinesh Khanna told me once about an anecdote which showed just how the govt too did not bother about doubles and its practitioners.
The national squad was travelling for an important international championship, which was a team event. But the BAI selected a team of just 4 members. Dinesh, being a Delhi-based player was then assigned the task of finding out if there was a chance of adding one player to the team.
The govt Babu, in charge of badminton, bluntly told Dinesh that no player can join the team.
“What is the need for 4 of you to have more players? You can make two pairs amongst you and play the event.”
He clearly did not know what are the requirements for the team and/or players.
Another icon in men’s doubles is Romen Ghosh who is 5 times winner of the national championships, has one observation. “The teams were selected on the performance of singles in my time. That is why long-time pairings could not be made. It was left to the senior player in the team to do the selection of pairs. So invariably we had scratch combinations to play. While the rest of the countries had doubles specialists, we had singles shuttlers playing the doubles. Now things have changed and that is why you have players like Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bringing these great results for us. They have done wonders and have changed the futile way we behaved before. Singles have been put on the back burner. And parents are also agreeable for their child to take up specialisation in the doubles as there is great coverage in the media and one can make a career out of this.”
Last word to Boe on the question I posed to him after the terrific duo had won Korean Open, whether Rankireddy and Chirag will still have the hunger for success and how long they can stay on top.
“Oh, staying at the top is up to them. They are still quite young and have their entire career in front of them. Regarding hunger for success let me tell you they have had great success of late, have. tasted the success and liked it”.
Well, we the fans also hope so.
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