Question on India's Junior Badminton Bench Strength

Most of the Indian Player / Pair haven't crossed the quarter finals of either German or Dutch Junior International 2023. Ayush Shetty, & Manraj Singh of MS, in German Open and Sathwik Reddy & Vaishnavi Khadkekar of XD in Dutch Open are the only players entered Quarter Finals of the recently concluded junior international tournaments. China has dominated the tournaments and showcased the strength of their Junior Badminton Bench. Followed by China, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia has developed good number of quality players. In contrast, India has just three representations in the quarter finals of both tournaments.

The following illustrations are comparing the No. of U19 players represented their country in Quarterfinals of German and Dutch Junior Internationals 2023, and population and GDP of the respective countries. Population is in crores and GDP is in Lakh Crores, USD.

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Even though India has equal population as China, in terms of performance, there is a huge difference. 27 Chinese players played in quarter finals and above rounds while India has only 3 representations. Indian Junior Badminton players' from Worlds Second largest populated nation with 140 crores plus people performed equal to the countries like Singapore and Denmark who has the population around 50 Lakh.

When it has compared with GDP of India, 3.18 Lakh crores USD, Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Denmark, Thailand and Singapore who has GDP less than 50,000 USD crores are the badminton power houses.

What may be the reasons for this difference between the performances and nation's capability?

Coaches availability and knowledge base in the grass-root level

Financial support available for the potential players,

Early identification of young promising payers,

Integrated, sustained, unified coaching system,

Sufficient infrastructures and equipment,

or

National, State, and District Association level communication and fund distribution.

It is the time to benchmark the BAI Badminton Coaching and Selection System with other successful Indian sports Cricket (BCCI) or with similar nations like Indonesia, Denmark or Malaysia.