India surprise Malaysia, bag badminton honours
having some good singles players, India had never won the team event in badminton at the Commonwealth Games. Their glory has been restricted to singles glory achieved by the likes of Prakash Padukone, Syed Modi, Saina Nehwal and P Kashyap.
But on Monday, India set right that anomaly as the team defeated Malaysia 3-1 in the final to win the gold medal.
Saina Nehwal sealed victory with an exciting win against Soniia Chea of Malaysia in the women’s singles after Malaysia had threatened a comeback by winning the men’s doubles clash. Saina won the first game 21-11 but she committed some errors towards the middle of the second game and allowed Soniia to take it 2119, winning the last few points egged on by the large number of Malaysian supporters in the crowd at the Carrara Indoor Stadium here. However, India could not be denied their hour of glory as Saina came back strongly in the decider to win it 21-9 to seal victory.
The mixed doubles combination of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponappa gave India a superb start when they came back from a second game slump to overcome Peng SoonChang and Liu Ying Goh
21-14, 15-21, 21-15.
The good opening seems to have given Kidambi Srikanth the confidence to register his first win against Malaysian legend Lee
Chong Wei. The Malaysian, a former
World No 1 and silver medallist in the last three Olympic
Games, did not look as sharp as ever while Srikanth always kept him under pressure, not allowing the Malaysian star to dictate terms. He kept the shuttle in play and as Lee committed mistakes, capitalised on them to score a 21-17, 21-14 victory, opening up a 2-0 lead for India in the match which was expected to be tough.
GOLDCOAST:Despite