The cricket fever continues thanks to the IPL which is warming up to exciting stages ahead. In this midst to add further cheers to sports fans have been the performances that demanded attention. We are talking of none other than the new badminton find, Ayush Shetty and the Chess wizard R Vaishali, who covered themselves with pride and made the country proud with their latest deeds. Like the batters in the IPL searching for new highs in their thirst for more and bigger sixes in their endeavour to seal a spot of greatness, these new talents have been on the road to progress with a yearning for excellence. Inspiration has been the key to their journey in their chosen sport.

Badminton in India has for long remained a sport that had no great names to talk of until in the sixties when Dinesh Khanna shot into fame with his gold medal success in the Asian Championship in 1965. Nandu Natekar, Prakash Padukone and a host of others like Syed Modi, Gopichand and the like then added to the foundation before the glitter in the success began to come through two women stalwarts, Saina Nehwal and P.V. Sindhu, the two Olympic medal winners in the sport for India. Doubles specialists Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty burst into the scene thereafter and with world doubles titles in 2022-23, Indian badminton had risen to be recognised all over. In........

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