Jwala Gutta and Chetan Anand in BAI's new coaching panel

Badminton Association of India introduced a new coach’s panel which includes former player 2011 World Championship bronze medallist Jwala Gutta and former Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Chetan Anand among others to use their expertise to bring the best in players in different zones across the country.

BAI selected 19 other coaches to guide players playing in the men’s singles category across the country in various zones, while 12 coaches have been selected for men’s doubles.

Men's singles panel includes 19 coaches with Pullela Gopichand being the chief national coach and 12 coaches have been selected for men’s doubles which include Akshay Dewalkar, Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar.

Women’s doubles players will be guided by 4 coaches that include women’s doubles ace Jwala Gutta along with Madhumita Bist, Pradnya Gadre and Oli Deka.

BAI secretary Anup Narang said “The idea was to give these coaches and former players an opportunity to train shuttlers in their zone. These are coaches who have shown interest when we had organised the conclave in May.”

Anup Narang further said “We will have half-yearly meetings and if they are able to deliver and show results in a couple of years then those shuttlers would be included in the national camp.”

Introducing a new coach panel could raise questions to reduce the powers of chief national coach Pullela Gopichand, but the chief National coach of Indian Badminton team responds positively.

"I think it's a good thing. It's very important that we have more coaches coming into the system. My role as chief coach and my core team will stay unchanged but there are a lot of programs which will have state and zonal centres and hopefully we'll have more use for these coaches. We have so far worked out just the skeletal framework so there's more ground to be covered and many issues left to be addressed, for instance, where the coaching camps will be held, for what duration etc." Gopichand told ESPN.

He added “The idea, according to BAI secretary Anup Narang, is to allow coaches to scout talent and train players from their respective zones. “If you look at the coaches, all of them belong to different parts of the country,” he said. So the intent is for them to nurture talent from their respective states and zones. We also want to give kids the opportunity and train and excel in the sport while being based out of their home state. Only once they reach the half way mark will they be moved to the national camp. So far, talent from across the country was not really being spotted and nurtured and that's what we're looking to change."

Coaches panel for seniors:

Singles:

P Gopichand (Chief National Coach), Siddhart Jain, Amrish Shinde, Utsav Mishra, Abhijit Nammapally, Anil Kumar, Sachin Rana, Hersen, Surender Mahajan, Chetan Anand, U Vimal Kumar, Umender Rana, Dipankar Bhattacharjee, Ravinder Singh, Arvind Bhatt, Anup Sridhar, Shrikant Bakshi, Georg Thomas, Marcos Bristow and Mitesh Hazarnis.

Men's doubles:

Uday Pawar, Vijay Deep Singh, Ajay Kanwar, Arun Vishnu, Suranjan Bhobora, Anand Khare, Akshay Dewalkar, Sanave Thomas, Rupesh Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Surinder Kumar, Virender Kumar.

Women's doubles:

Jwala Gutta, Madhumita Bisht, Pradnya Gadre, Oli Deka.

Coaches panel for juniors:

 Boys’ singles:

Sanjay Mishra (Chief National Coach), Nikhil Kanetkar, Anshuman Hazarika, Bahiman Borah, Venkatesh, Tanveer Gill, BN Sudhakar, Sudhir Singh, CH Kiran, Kiran Makode, Jibi Verghese, Antony Jacob, Shibu Gopidas, Govardhan Reddy, G Sudhakar Reddy, D K Sen, Prem Lal, Neeraj Kumar, JVS Vidyadhar, Abhin Shyam Gupta, Sagar Chopra.

Girls singles:

Trupti Murugunde, Hufrish Nariman, Deepthi, Sayali Gokhale, Manjusha Kanwar, Ankur Chandoka, Nancy Tandon, Sarada Reddy, Neelima Choudhury, Poonam Tewari.

Advisors:

S M Arif, Sanjeev Sachdeva, Roshan Lal Nahar, Ganguli Prasad.