The upcoming Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023 will be a major test for the Indian shuttlers as they have not looked at their best in recent times. India are drawn in Group B alongside Malaysia, Kazakhstan and UAE and will definitely face some challenges in this tournament. The event will be held in Dubai and will start on 14th February and run for the next five days.
A total of 17 countries are participating in this tournament and the teams will be divided into three groups of four teams and one group of five teams.
The draw of the tournament took place on 31st January in the Dubai Sports Council where Indian badminton ace PV Sindhu was present as a Guest of Honour. The tournament will be a highly contested event as there are top seeded countries like China, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. This will be the first time the tournament is being held since 2019 as the last edition got cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic.
If we look at the groups then Group A consists of top teams like China, Korea, Singapore and Uzbekistan. Whereas Group B is no less as it has teams like Malaysia, India, Kazakhstan and UAE. Group C has teams like Indonesia, Thailand, Bahrain, Syria and Lebanon. Last but not the least Group D has Japan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, China and Pakistan.
The Indian team for the MIxed Asian Team Championships was announced earlier. The team is selected according to rankings and their performance in recent times. While some of the players had to go through the qualifiers and make the cut.
The Indian team consists of some exceptional players as Double Olympic medallist, PV SIndhu alongwith Akarshi Kashyap in Women’s Singles. Commonwealth Games champions Lakshya Sen and World Number 9, HS Prannoy. All eyes will be on the star pariring of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty who are World No.5 in the Men’s Doubles category. The Indian pairing have withdrawn from the last few tournaments and their fitness will be a major point of discussion as the tournament closes in.
The second pairing of Krishna Prasad Garga and Vishnuvardhan Goud Pranjala will also look to give a good account of themselves as they are still growing as a pair and every tournament is crucial for the young shuttlers. In Women’s Doubles there will be hopes of the pairing of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand to do well as they have grown immensely in the last year. Whereas Ashwini K Bhat and Shikha Gautam will also be looking to make a mark in such a global tournament. Lastly the mixed doubles pairing of Ishaan Bhatnagar and Tanisha Crasto will also be looking to gain some valuable experience from playing these big events where they get to represent the tricolour.
Indian badminton fans will be hoping that Satwik-Chirag’s duo get fit and feature in this tournament or else it will be a big blow whereas Saina Nehwal who has decided to focus only on Singles event will also be a big miss especially due to the experience that she would have brought to this team. Also there will be eyes on PV Sindhu who has been very rusty since returning from injury and her fans will be hoping that she can gain some momentum in this tournament.
India finished last in the 2019 edition of the tournament as most of the top Indian players did not feature. So this time they have a big opportunity to make it big and make it past the group stage.
