Indian Badminton League was far more successful than it was expected and the chief reason was the popularity of local players like Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Ajay Jayaram, Ashwini Ponnappa and Parupalli Kashyap which brought the crowd into the stadium. What took this million dollar league to the next level was the involvement of the players like Julian Schenk, Ivanov, Taufik Hidayat, Tanongsak, who not just won their matches or gave some very tough competition to the Indian players, but also won the hearts of many with the brilliant display of their skills.
This doesn’t mean that everything was fine with the IBL.
The franchisees were in an enigma whether this league would be as successful as Indian Premier League or not, especially in terms of audience and that was one of the reasons that the auction was delayed time and again. But even with delayed auctions, things were not as smooth -- right from the tampered data in the guide book, that was issued to the franchisees, to the last minute exclusion of women’s doubles from the league that left some senior players miffed up.
Things were not looking quite well before the start of the tournament, with icon players like Ashwini Ponappa and Jwala Gutta showing their displeasure against the organisers for the ill-treatment meeted out to them, but the opening match of the tournament was the real game changer when crowd of almost 12,000 turned up to see Hyderabad Hotshots and Awadhe Warriors taking on each other.
What made this opening tie more interesting was the clash between Saina and Sindhu who are seen as the torch bearers of the Indian badminton. With the every single match of the each and every tie that was played, the tournament gathered more and more attention of the viewers. With players like RVM Gurusaidutt and K Srikanth coming holding good against much higher ranked foreigners, it augured well for the game and brought crowd to the toruanemnt with each passing tie. Apart, the positive review of foreign players is also acted as a great sign for this one of a kind of badminton league.
Though, the glitches that were faced before or during the tournament, whether it was regarding of the slashing down of the prices or foreign players getting less than the local players, could be sorted out before the next season, Badminton Association of India should better use this opportunity to bring the best players of all around the world and make do their bit to make this tournament a success. This bitter-sweet experience of the inaugural season will surely help the organisers in organising the future editions of IBL in a much better way.
By Amit Chopra
