Mission accomplished: Shuttle garners glory!

fter 18 days of successful orbiting, the Indian Badminton League ( IBL) ‘ shuttle’ finally landed on Sunday in Mumbai to give Hyderabad Hotshots the first league title.

India’s ‘ Badminton Queen’ Saina Nehwal who scripted second win of the league against her Gopichand Academy partner and emerging star P V Sindhu in the summit clash, let herself loose jumping all around the stadium in joy.

So much so, that she even handed over her winning racquet to a kid who had held the banner stating ‘ Saina I Want our Winning Racquet’. One bold step, tedious planning and keen interest taken by the Indian Badminton Federation and private franchises seem to have paid off for resurrecting the sport of Badminton.

It was an attempt to think out of the box, to attract cricket crazy nation’s attention towards this side of the game. IBL not only gave the much need boost to badminton but also provided a huge opportunity to many unknown players to bask into the limelight, play and share the same duct with some great international bigwigs and horn their individual skills.

Despite some glitches like players complaining about shuttle speed ( being too fast) to some starting delays during one of the matches at Bangalore, the event turned out to be a total entertainer all throught with packed houses. IBL certainly brought back the people’s interest in the game.

One should not be surprised if other sports follow the IPL to IBL pattern to set their house in order.

If they want to seek similar attention, they can certainly do so minus the typical bureaucratic approach by respective federations and minimum political interference.

Just like the badminton federation shed off their old dry skin, others will also have to be courageous enough to do so.

Post- IBL one can only expect for the rise in the takers for badminton as passionate profession, as one of the newspapers also reported that number of entries for this year’s school tournaments by MSSA have gone up to 830 as compared to 650 in the year 2012, with 127 institutions sending their wards to play as compared to 97 last year.

This was just the first year of the IBL, some minor errors were bound to happen and it’s part and parcel of the game.

When you organise such a big event of this large magnitude it’s always a matter of plus and minuses. Next year, I’m sure the IBL will have some more interesting elements to offer not just to the players but also to the spectators.

At the moment the ‘ IBL Shuttle’ has managed to place back the sport of badminton where it belonged in the past, i. e., on top of the sporty orbit!

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