The Indian men’s badminton team created history on Sunday (May 15) by winning the Thomas Cup for the first time and ending the country’s 73-year-old dream. After getting past Malaysia and Denmark in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively, India stunned the 14-time winners Indonesia to win the Thomas Cup as the likes of Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, HS Prannoy, Chirag Shetty-Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, etc. have given immense pride to the countrymen back home.
Recalling India’s terrific journey en route to the historic title, Srikanth — whose straight-set victory over Jonatan Christie sealed the deal for India with an unassaible 3-0 lead in the final — stated that the team was always confident and created a WhatsApp group to unite them for a special purpose. “This might sound a little dramatic. But you know, when I was in Korea for the Korea Masters, and the following week we had selection trials immediately after those trials, when the team got announced, we created a (WhatsApp) group titled ‘We’ll Bring It Home’, or something like that.”
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“This happened a week before the tournament started. So yeah we always thought we are capable, but we only had to be consistent. Coming here, it was a fantastic team and we had great atmosphere. We were a happy team, and we were really supporting each other and backing each other,” Srikanth said in an interaction with BWF.
Post India’s historic triumph, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to the Indian player on call after they received their gold medal. On the other hand, the Sports Ministry and the Badminton Association of India announced a whopping INR 1 crore each cash reward for the history-making team.
