Sports India

The Badminton Association of India’s (BAI) approach-play for its Project 2010 is getting murkier by the day. Last Friday BAI president V K Verma had told Newsline that nine-time national champion Aparna Popat had withdrawn from the list of campers after her name had been included in the original list of 32.

But, on contacting the player, this paper learnt that Aparna had received the letter only on Saturday and she had not yet sent the BAI any reply regarding her decision not to join the camp. While it is clearly a case of the BAI president jumping the gun, what is obvious is that the BAI was just trying to save its skin by putting Aparna’s name on the list.

Aparna’s aversion to camps is all very well known and by putting her name on top of the list, the BAI hoped to kill two birds with one stone. It avoided the furore that would have been caused had her name not been there, at the same time being safe in the knowledge that she would withdraw her name from the list.

While Aparna has decided not to join the camp since she doesn’t see herself playing till 2010, the rumour that is circulating in the badminton circles is a concerted effort to kill off any possible threat to Saina Nehwal’s supremacy in the woman’s game.

A case in point is obviously the exclusion of Trupti Murgunde from the list. Trupti has a 50-50 record against Saina and is considered the lone player capable of challenging the 16-year-old in the years to come. With Saina’s coach Pullela Gopichand also being the chief national coach, grapevine has it that there is a lot more to Trupti’s exclusion than just her failure to commit herself till 2010, as is being officially circulated.

When asked the reason for Trupti’s exclusion, Gopichand stuck to what Verma had to say. He talked about having open trials for the non-campers before any major event, at the same time sounding a note of warning about their future.