India’s chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand feels the country’s coaching system needs an overhaul in order to produce world-class players. Speaking to reporters in Chandigarh on Thursday during the selection tournament for the world junior championships, the 44-year-old said India doesn’t have many quality badminton coaches.
“There is a dire need to improve the coaching system,” he was quoted as saying by The Tribune. “It can either be good if players shift to coaching, for which the BAI (Badminton Association of India) should come up with some plan, or by introducing more practical drills for the current lot at the ground level. If we have to produce good players, we have to have a good coaching structure.”
Gopichand added that building infrastructure is easy but finding “committed and motivated people” who can work for the greater good of the sport is the tough part. “The bizarre thing about sports in India is that we don’t have a proper road map,” he was quoted as saying by the Times of India. “Our coaches are mediocre. We don’t seem to know how to nurture the coaches.”
Gopichand also said that unless coaching becomes lucrative, people are not going to take up the profession. “At the moment, our challenge is that coaching is not looked at the way it should be looked at. The best minds don’t get into coaching,” he said.
More regional meets
The former All England champion also suggested organising more regional competitions so that national ranking tournaments receive lesser number of entries. The Chandigarh U-19 tournament received over 1,000 entries for the qualifying rounds.
“If someone is coming from Kerala or Assam and loses in the very first match, what is the use of such a championship?” said Gopichand. “BAI should uplift the morale of players through regional championships and should allow top performers – or say top-10 players – to play in ranking championships.”
He added, “The players and their parents come here after spending a huge amount of money and time, which is not easy to manage. I believe a competition should provide a platform, instead of turning into a burden.”
Gopichand also spoke about the tight schedule of India’s top shuttlers this year, which is not giving them enough recovery time. “We had two weeks of Commonwealth Games, then two weeks of Asian Games. In the next 12 weeks we will be playing in France, Berlin, China and Malaysia, which is a matter concern for me as a coach,” he said. “Our players are not getting recovery time. The Indian and Malaysian players are the ones who are most affected by this tight scheduling [as they contested in both CWG and Asian Games].”
The national coach seemed to take a dig at the media when he said that the common perception is that PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal “choke on stamina” during tough matches. “But if you are playing such number of championships, you ought to have a break somewhere,” he said. “Despite this, our players are doing well at the international level. There is always scope of improvement, but it could be achieved only if we have time.”