Sri Lanka is famous for sending badminton teams, especially juniors, for international tournaments at random. This is done regardless of Sri Lanka’s badminton players not being of a high standard.
The most recent one is the BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championship which was held from September 30 to October 5 in Kazan, Russia and the team did not make much progress.
Sri Lanka sent four boys and four girls but there were six officials who accompanied them. Was this many officials necessary to accompany the team?
The Sunday Observer learns that the funds for this trip were a donation made by a certain official of Sri Lanka Badminton. Even if the funds were not footed by the Sports Ministry and were a private concern, should so many officials be sent? This is more like a pleasure trip offered to officials who had about five days of free time after the Sri Lanka team had failed to progress further.
The mixed team played three matches in their group and won against Peru 4-1 while going down to Korea 1-4 and Singapore 1-4. With these results Sri Lanka failed to qualify for the next round. Dilmi Dias made an impression during this tour winning most of her matches. She was the only winner in the Singles against Korea and won the women’s Doubles event with Anurangi Masakorala against Singapore.
Dilmi won the Singles and women’s Doubles event with Anurangi Masakorale against Peru. Lochana de Silva won the men’s Singles event while the men’s Doubles pair of Lochana de Silva and Thulith Palliyaguru also won against Peru.
The mixed pair of Thulith Palliyaguru and Anurangi Masakorala lost to the pair from Peru.
It is true that players must be exposed to foreign competition to improve their standards but it is difficult in the Asian circuit due to the high standard maintained by players in this region.