India needs to focus on coaches’ education program, says Padukone

Indian badminton has been hogging all the limelight since quite a time now and can’t get enough of Sindhu, Saina, Srikanth, Prannoy, Sai Praneeth, and Sameer verma. As the popularity of sport is on rise, the legend Prakash Padukone says that there is demand for quality coaches in the country.

During the announcement of 10th edition of the Tata Open India International Challenge at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) on Tuesday, Padukone expressed his views on how important the role of coaches has become in this rapidly emerging badminton nation. He said, “If we have to continue producing quality players, we need to shift focus towards coaches' education programmes, especially in Tier II and Tier III cities. There's been an increase in the popularity of the sport and there is now great demand for quality coaches. If all the people connected with badminton - the BAI, the Sports Authority of India (SAI), the sports ministry, the private foundations and state associations - work together, this key issue can be addressed.”

He added, “I have said this often and I reiterate: we need to get a good foreign coach who will be responsible for only training coaches. I think that will solve this issue to a great extent. This can be done in batches of 50 to 100 coaches, who can return to their cities and academies after their own training.”

He explained how the knowledge of development is lacking with the coaches in their field. He said, “We have some very good coaches, but unfortunately they don't get much opportunity to upgrade their knowledge and keep pace with the developments that are taking place at the global level. It's not that they don't want to improve, they just don't get that opportunity.”

Talking about the consistency of participation and the training schedule of the players, he said, “That would depend on each individual player. The key is to strike a balance between training and number of tournaments they are participating in. At the top level, figuring out the perfect mix is also an art. It's upon each individual and coach to decide, and the focus should be on peaking for top tournaments like the Olympics, World Championships and Super Series events. Even then, I feel Indian players need to guard against fatigue and injury. These are things that can result from playing in too many tournaments.”