New Delhi: Indian shuttlers HS Prannoy and B Sai Praneeth Monday claimed that administrative goof-ups by the Badminton Association of India (BAI) have robbed them of participation at the Asia Badminton Championships, an allegation that the BAI refuted.
India will be represented by Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma in men’s singles at the USD 4,00,000 event in Wuhan, China, commencing Tuesday after the BAI allegedly did not confirm the entries of Prannoy and Praneeth to the organisers.
“According to the process, Badminton Asia confederation sent the allocations informing who are the players who all have qualified from a country. All other countries like Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia have four entries even though Indonesia and Malaysian players are ranked way below me and Praneeth,” Prannoy told this agency.
“So I enquired about the rules and came to know BAI didn’t reply to the e-mails confirming our entries,” added the 26-year-old, who had won a bronze at the last edition.
The BAI, however, said in a statement that Badminton Asia asked for only two entries in men’s singles and it sent the names of Srikanth and Verma based on their world rankings.
Prannoy, who had been battling a gastroesophageal reflux disease since last year, has missed out on a lot of time. Now he won’t have the chance to defend his semifinal ranking points.
“It happened in 2016 also. ABC was the last event for the Olympic race and me and Ajay Jayaram were also running for the Olympics. Then Kashyap and Srikanth got the entries, so that time also nobody told us. At that time also BAI didn’t confirm.
“Last year we all played because the guy who send the entries, Abhijit, was doing everything correctly, now I don’t know what is happening, who is missing. The system is entirely messed up,” alleged the 26-year-old.
Prannoy also alleged that travelling for tournaments too have became difficult as the players mostly come to know about the ticket confirmation at the last moment.
“The guy who is handling our entries, travelling, transporting is messing it up for the last five months since Abhijit quit BAI. Ticketing is done at last moment. If we are travelling Saturday, we are getting to know on that day itself and we are getting worse flights. Why can’t they confirm our tickets five days before,” asked Prannoy.
He also claimed that they were stranded in Hong Kong during the Asia Mixed team championship, apparently, due to another goof-up by the BAI.