‘Big names are important’

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She may have made India proud at a number of national and international badminton tournaments, but shuttler Saina Nehwal says that’s all she is good at. “I can’t dance at all. It’s really difficult for me to pick up dance steps,” she shyly said when she couldn’t match the dance steps of young schoolkids from Genesis Global School to the song Jai Jai Jai Ganesha.

Saina was in the city to launch the Shuttle Express, a school initiative by the Indian Badminton League that starts from mid-August.
However, she was absolutely at ease when she had the racket in hand to teach a few badminton techniques to the students. From explaining the backhand technique to a young girl, to guiding another student on the best delivery, Saina seemed to be enjoying her time with the kids. She insists that to make the sport popular, it’s necessary to train the kids well. Something that Shuttle Express will just do, she believes.
After this experience, the shuttler thinks that school students have really started taking up badminton. “Good performance was always there. Badminton just needed popularity,” says Saina, adding that she thinks her bringing home a Bronze from the London Olympics in 2012 has encouraged many youngsters to take up the sport in earnest. “It has grown a lot since then. Just after I returned from Olympics, the IBL was announced. An initiative like this is a really good platform for both seniors and juniors. It would give the much-needed exposure and boost to players who don’t get to play at many international events,” she says.
But the shuttler is still not happy with the badminton coaching system of the country. “There are no good academies for badminton at all. We have stadiums but no coaches and that hinders the growth of the sport,” remarks Saina, who trained at the Gopichand Academy. She feels that people still give studies more importance than sports. “We need to raise the confidence in people about taking up sports seriously,” she adds.
When asked if IBL has the same potential to make new discoveries in terms of players as its cricket counterpart IPL, she remarks that a start at some point was necessary. “There needed to be a start. You may not have players in the first edition but you may get 20 players in the second edition. It will just grow with better training,” she says.
Speculations are that some of the known names from cricket would own the franchisee of some of the IBL teams and Saina feels it would just add to an entertaining show. “Big names are really important,” she says.
She would even like big players from other countries to come and play in the League. “People in India may not know who Li Xuerui and Wang Yihan are. But if they come and play here, they will become popular and may even bring more interest to the game. In IPL too, many not well known players played and became popular,” she says.