CWG 2022 : India lose to Malaysia in final, get silver in badminton mixed team event

In a rematch of the last edition’s final, India lost to Malaysia 1-3, failing to defend their Commonwealth Games title and got silver.

In the badminton mixed team event in Birmingham on Tuesday. This was India’s fifth silver in the current CWG and the 13th medal overall. India did not get off to an ideal start as their men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost the first match to Malaysia’s Wooi Yik Soh and Teng Fong Aaron in straight games 18-21, 15-21. Rankireddy and Shetty had been in fantastic form throughout this tournament, always giving India the initial lead but they faltered in the final. They gave away an 18-15 lead in the first game and then the Malaysian pair just did not let them come back in the match.

The defending champions, however, made a strong comeback through their ace shuttler PV Sindhu, who defeated a resilient Jin Wei Goh in straight games 22-20 and 21-17. Sindhu was cruising in the first game with an 18-12 lead but a cross-court from Wei Goh sprang life into the match as the Malaysian went on to win seven points in a row to make it 19-18 in her favour.

The two-time Olympic medal-winning Indian shuttler, however, managed to hold her nerve and take the first game. In the next game, Sindhu once again took the early lead and this time, did not let Goh make a comeback. With the opportunity there, the former world champion closed out the match quite comfortably to level the best-of-five affair 1-1.

In a gruelling men’s singles match between India’s Kidambi Srikanth and Malaysia’s Tze Yong NG, the latter won 21-19, 6-21, 21-16. It was, first of all, a bit of a surprise that India went with Srikanth instead of Lakshya Sen, who had played both the men’s singles matches in the quarterfinal and semi-final for India.

In the first game, which went down to the wire, the Malaysian took the last two points to seal the deal after it was locked at 19-19. Srikanth, the higher ranked shuttler of the two, showed his true class in the second game, literally blowing the Malaysian away 21-6 to push it to the deciding third game.

The rallies were way shorter than the first game as the Indian closed out the points early with precious movement and anticipation and when the rallies did start to materialise, the former world number 1 turned them in his favour by getting into outstanding positions.

In the third game, the net-tape came to Yong’s rescue twice and Srikanth made a couple of unforced errors at crucial juncture as the Malaysian helped himself into an 11-9 lead. The Indian tried his best to make a comeback but the Malaysian perhaps played arguably the best badminton of his life to seal the game and the match.

With the match on the line, the Indian women’s doubles pair of teenagers Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand put up a gallant fight against the top seeded pair of Thinaah Muralitharan and Koong Pe Pearly Tan but the experienced pair absorbed the pressure and took the match 21-18, 21-17 to clinch the gold medal for Malaysia.