A youthful yet experienced Indian badminton team fashioned one of the country’s greatest sporting moments when it hammered defending champions Indonesia 3-0 to lift the Thomas Cup for the first time.
While Lakshya Sen and the doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty showed steely determination to score come-from-behind wins against higher-ranked opponents, Kidambi Srikanth displayed a ruthless brand of badminton to down Jonathan Christie in straight games and trigger wild celebrations from the Indian contingent which stormed the court in unbridled delight.
“Unforgettable RED DAY for Indian badminton,” proclaimed Prakash Padukone, the game’s true pioneer in the country.
As first-time victories go, this is up there with India's greatest team sports moments such as the hockey World Cup triumph in 1975 against Pakistan and the cricket World Cup victory in 1983 when Kapil’s Devils ended West Indies’ hegemony on the tournament.
On Sunday, coach Vimal Kumar hoped the Thomas Cup triumph would do the same to the country's shuttle sport as the 1983 win did to cricket.
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To put the significance of India’s achievement in perspective, they are only the sixth country to win the tournament in its 73-year history. While Indonesia (14-time winners), China (10) and Malaysia (5) have dominated the men’s team event, the other two nations to break the monopoly are Japan in 2014 and Denmark in 2016.
Though India have had some of their finest moments in world badminton individually — from Padukone’s All England title to Saina Nehwal, who won India’s maiden Olympic medal, to P V Sindhu’s World Championship gold — the latest success will go down as a watershed moment in India’s sporting and badminton history. “We have now truly arrived on the big scene,” Padukone added.