Asia Team Badminton Championship: India’s first clash with Kazakhstan

Despite the fear of Coronavirus, India’s strong men’s team arrived in Manila, the Philippines to participate in the Asia team Badminton Championship starting on Tuesday. The team is eyeing the medal which will give the players important ranking points in the Olympic year. The Indian women’s team has decided to withdraw from the fear of spreading the coronavirus.

The badminton association of India has fielded a very strong team which consists of Kidambi Srikanth, World Championship bronze medalists B Sai Praneeth, HS Prannoy, Shubhankar Sharma and Lakshya Sen. The Indian team won bronze in this championship in 2016.

The team was initially placed in Group A with two-time defending champions Indonesia and hosts the Philippines, but due to travel restrictions for China and Hong Kong, due to the fear of coronavirus, to the of the host country and with these two teams pulling out of the competition, the team managers’ meeting on called again on Monday. After the meeting there was reshuffling in the draws and India are now placed in Group B along with Malaysia and Kazakhstan.

The top two teams from all four groups will advance to the quarter-finals. India will begin its campaign against Kazakhstan. The Indian team then has to play Malaysia on Thursday.

The Asia Team Championship is being organized for the third time. This championship will also serve as the Asia qualifier for the Thomas and Uber Cup team championships later this year. The Asia Team Championship will also serve as part of the qualification process for this year’s Tokyo Olympics.

As far as the Indian team’s challenge in concerned the Indian team is expected to win easily against Kazakhstan but the match against Malaysia will be exciting. Malaysia’s youth team includes world number 14 Lee Zii Jia, 2014 Youth Olympics gold medalist Cheam June Wei and three-time silver medalist Leong Jun Hao of the World Junior Championship.