For a long time, hockey and cricket, in that order, have ruled the roost when it comes to team sports in India. By virtue of having brought home an unprecedented eight Olympics gold medals, six of them in a row, hockey remains the sentimental favourite, while cricket, after the 1983 World Cup triumph, has firmly entrenched itself as the king of sports. Indian football did have its moments in the ‘50s and ‘60s, as did tennis, thanks to the Davis Cup. But notwithstanding some of the finest individual achievements, badminton somehow had failed to pull its weight when it came to team events, the most prestigious of which are the Thomas Cup for men and the Uber Cup for women. India have had multiple All-England winners and multiple medallists of all hues at the Olympics and the World Championships. Yet, they invariably came up short in team competitions. It was an anomaly that needed to be set right. The game’s traditional powerhouses like Indonesia, China and Malaysia have dominated team competitions, with only Japan and Denmark managing to break that stranglehold once each in the Thomas Cup’s 73-year history. On Sunday afternoon, the Indian men’s badminton team smashed the shackles and pencilled itself in as the finest in the world, for the time being at the very least.
Lakshya Sen, the precocious 20-year-old, set the tone with a come-from-behind win over the higher-ranked Anthony Ginting. The doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, a crucial cog in India’s progress to the final, lived up to their exalted No. 7 ranking by taming Mohammad Ahsan and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo. With their tails up, India completed the 3-0 demolition of Indonesia when K Srikanth outclassed Jonatan Christie in straight games. Until this edition, no Indian men’s team had reached even the medal round of badminton’s showpiece event, so this was a complete turnaround in fortunes. Not, however, that this triumph should come as a massive surprise. Sen was the highest-ranked Indian at No. 9 in the world, Srikanth was ranked 11 and HS Prannoy, the third singles player who wasn’t required in the final, is No. 23 in the world. There definitely was the potential to pull off something special, even if the weight of history was against India. The team which hadn’t gone past the semifinal stage previously was up in the final against the 14-time champions and the tournament’s most successful team of all time. But the Indian shuttlers shed their inhibitions and realised their potential, bearing down on the title with no sign of nerves or pressure. The winning moment reaffirmed India’s steady growth as one of the world’s badminton powerhouses. A revolution that began with Saina Nehwal’s rise more than a dozen years ago has culminated in the Thomas Cup triumph. It is time we build on this slice of inspiration and make winning a habit rather than an exception.