The Badminton Asia Team Championships continued on Thursday as the Indian Men’s team succumbed to a 1-4 defeat at the hands of the young Malaysian team in the second group B match of the tournament.

The absence of Doubles specialist Satwiksairaj Rankireddy proved costly as his experience on the Badminton court was severely missed. His lack was due to an injury to an ankle sprain, which made him pull out of the Championships. This has forced India to field two introduce alternative players who were M.R Arjun, Chirag Shetty, and Lakshya Sen with Dhruv Kapila, both of whom lost their ties, respectively.

The only shuttler who registered a win was Kidambi Srikanth as Sai Praneeth, who is ranked no. Eleven in the world and HS Pranooy lost their games in the other singles in straight sets, which was held at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.

Following the aftermath of this loss, India will face Thailand in the quarterfinals on Friday. India had previously trashed Kazakhstan in their opening game after they raced to a 4-1 win. But their match against the Malaysians wasn’t a good outing with Satwik absent in the game, the pressure was on Praneeth to deliver, but unfortunately, he lost 18-21, 15-21 to Lee Zi Jia ranked no.14 in the world.

The Malaysian combination of Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik was deadly as they edged out India shuttlers Chirag and Arjun 18-21, 15-21.
Even the shuttlers [ Dhruv and Lakshya] who were drafted as a replacement for satwik also lost to Malaysian Pair of Ong Yew Sin and Teo Ee Yi as Malaysia won 3-1.

India has to perform well against their opponents [Thailand] for them to have any hopes of qualifications to the quarterfinals stage

Written by: Olumide Akinnifesi