For over a decade, H.S. Prannoy has been Indian badmintonâs quiet engine â the fighter who kept turning up, grinding and powering the countryâs rise on the world stage when the spotlight was elsewhere. But this year, the story has moved on without him.As the World championships arrive in Delhi, the responsibility of carrying Indiaâs flag has passed to a new generation â Ayush Shetty and Lakshya Sen â while Prannoy watches from the sidelines. Itâs a moment of transition, and to his credit, the 34-year-old doesnât dodge it. Heâs candid, almost disarmingly so, even as he insists the torch hasnât left his hands just yet.âIâm not ready to give up the torch, Iâll still try for another year or two,â Prannoy tells Sportstar. âBut as a player, you come to terms with the fact that there might be tough years in your career, and honestly, the last two years have been tough for me. You always want to play at the top level, and when that doesnât happen, youâre disappointed. I wouldâve loved to play in Delhi next week.âBut disappointment, for Prannoy, doesnât curdle into self-pity. Instead, he reaches for perspective â a decade-plus careerâs worth of it.âThe problem with us players is that we forget what we did in the last 15 years and only think about whatâs coming next. You never really appreciate what happened before. I donât even remember how many World Championships Iâve played! At this point, itâs important to acknowledge that we did what we could, and this year I couldnât; I wasnât at my best in the last few months and didnât qualify. And thatâs okay.âFor Prannoy, the changing of the guard isnât just an inevitability heâs grudgingly accepted. Itâs a cause he actively fights for, every single day on the training court.âThe next generation does have to take over eventually. Someone like me, at the age of 34 or 35, shouldnât still be ahead of a lot of the younger players. Honestly, they should beat me at this age, theyâre faster than me. I keep telling them this so that I also stay on my toes in training. Iâve always loved that push, and itâs part of why Iâve exceeded what I thought I was capable of.âAnd that same competitive fire, the thing that has always driven him, is what keeps him from walking away just yet.âI still feel that over the next two years Iâll put in everything to get back to the top 10. So itâs something where you keep telling the youngsters itâs not good enough yet, but you also keep checking whether theyâre arriving at the right rankings at the right time. Iâm not ready to give up the torch because deep down, if the body allows it, Iâll still be there and Iâm not going to stop on an easy note,â he says.âIâll try hard until the last day and see how it goes. If it doesnât work out, Iâm completely okay with that. This World championships is a reminder of how much someone like me and (Kidambi) Srikanth wanted to play there but couldnât, and Iâm sure itâll push us both for the next six months, hoping that at the next big event we can be back at the top.âUntil that day comes, one thing is clear: Prannoy isnât ready to be written off. And neither, in his mind, is Srikanth.
