Thomas Cup: India created history on Sunday by beating 14-time champions Indonesia 3-0 in the finals.
File image of Prakash Padukone. Reuters
India’s historic Thomas Cup victory has been a matter of great pride for the nation and legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone hailed it as a red letter day for Indian badminton.”Absolutely no luck involved here, we truly arrived. It’s a red letter day,” Prakash told India Today‘s Rajdeep Sardesai.
“I never thought as a team that we would win,” he further added.
On 15 May, Sunday, the Indian contingent created history by beating 14-time champions Indonesia 3-0 in the finals. India is sixth country to boast of a Thomas Cup win.
From being considered the underdogs during the knockouts, India defeated Malaysia in the quarters, stunned Denmark in the semis and registered a solid win against Indonesia in the finals at Bangkok.
After Lakshya Sen and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty made it 2-0 in the best-of-five contest, Kidambi Srikanth clinched the gold medal for India by beating Jonatan Christie 21-18, 23-21.
A complete team performance in the finals, India’s win was set up by the grit of Lakshya Sen who defeated Anthony Ginting despite a shaky start in his first game. After Sen, the doubles duo of Satwaiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty held their nerve in the doubles game to give India a crucial lead.
In the first match of the tie, world number nine Lakshya Sen squared off against world number four Anthony Sinisuka Ginting. The Indian entered the match with a 1-0 head-to-head advantage and further extended his dominance with an 8-21, 21-17, 21-16 win in a match that lasted 65 minutes.
Srikanth called it the biggest win for Indian badminton and the likes of Pullela Gopichand and Vimal Kumar echoed his sentiments and called it as big as, maybe even bigger than India’s victory in the 1983 cricket World Cup.
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