BAI forms coaches' panel

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has formed a coaches' panel, including the likes of Jwala Gutta and former players Arvind Bhat, Chetan Anand and Anup Sridhar, to broadbase the training of shuttlers across the country.

There are 19 coaches in the panel for men's singles with Pullela Gopichand being the chief national coach.  For the men's doubles, there is a panel of 12 coaches and for women's doubles four, including Jwala, multiple national champion Madhumita Bisht and Pradnya Gadre. The list of men's doubles coaches include some young faces in Akshay Dewalkar, Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar.

The 10 women coaches in the junior panel include two-time senior national champion Sayali Gokhale and Trupti Murgunde. There are also 21 men's coaches for juniors with Sanjay Mishra being the chief national coach. “We want to ensure that we have players in every zone of the country and getting the best of coaching. If we want results like China, it is important that Indian badminton has good coaches all across the country. Things are still at an experimental stage, but we are very clear in our plan of expanding badminton in the country,” said a BAI official.

Another official said: “I think the BAI president (Himanta Biswa Sarma) is looking to democratise the process and bring everyone together. What we have now is probably a rather extensive coaching list, but it might come down in a year or so depending on performance and involvement.”

It has also been learned that a core committee, comprising select people, has been formed to look after both the senior and junior players and is expected to meet here on Saturday.

Coaches Panel for Seniors: Men's Singles: P Gopichand (Chief National Coach), Siddharth Jain, Amrish Shinde, Utsav Mishra, Abhijit Naimpally, Anil Kumar, Sachin Rana, Hersen, Surender Mahajan, Chetan Anand, U Vimal Kumar, Umender Rana, Dipankar Bhattacharjee, Ravinder Singh, Arvind Bhat, Anup Sridhar, Shrikant Bakshi, George Thomas, Marcos Bristow and Mitesh Hazarnis.

Men's doubles: Uday Pawar, Vijay Deep Singh, Ajay Kanwar, Arun Vishnu, Suranjan Bhobora, Anand Khare, Akshay Dewalkar, Sanave Thomas, Rupesh Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Surinder Kumar, Virender Kumar.

Women's doubles: Jwala Gutta, Madhumita Bisht, Pradnya Gadre, Oli Deka

Juniors: Men's singles: Sanjay Mishra (Chief National Coach), Nikhil Kanetkar, Anshuman Hazarika, Bahiman Borah, Venkatesh, Tanveer Gill, B N Sudhakar, Sudhir Singh, CH Kiran, Kiran Makode, Jibi Verghese, Antony Jacob, Shibu Gopidas, Govardhan Reddy, G Sudhakar Reddy, D K Sen, Prem Lal, Neeraj Kumar, JVS Vidyadhar, Abhinn Shyam Gupta, Sagar Chopra. Women's singles: Trupti Murgunde, Hufrish Nariman, Deepthi, Sayali Gokhale, Manjusha Kanwar, Ankur Chandoka, Nancy Tandon, Sarada Reddy, Neelima Choudhury, Poonam Tewari. Advisors: S M Arif, Sanjeev Sachdeva, Roshan Lal Nahar, Ganguli Prasad.