Why can't BAI study all paradigms before making rules?

Trust the Badminton Association of India to create confusion when none was needed and then call it an attempt at improvement.

The latest drama is currently unfolding at the Inter-State National championship in Srinagar where the new rules for the team championship are being implemented.

According to these rules, a team can field only those players through out the tournament who were named in the first tie and any replacement would be permitted only if one of the player is injured and ruled out for the tournament.

This means that if only three of the five members in the women's team or seven of the 10 in mens are fielded in the opening tie then the remaining would merely be spectators through out the tournament.

It effectively takes away the coach's prerogative to pick his playing members and any tactical adjustment he/she want to do with the squad and is being criticised by all teams.

But the bigger joke is not the rule but the foolishness of the administrators who aimed to streamline the team championship rules and regulations in accordance to the international standards but ended up making a fool of themselves due to petty politics.

The Competition Officials Committee (COC), which is responsible for formulating competition rules and regulations, had been advocating the need to implement the Thomas/Uber Cup regulations for the Inter-State meet.

According to those regulations, once a team gives the list of their players for a particular tie the top ranked singles players according to international rankings of each team will face each other in the first match, second faces second and there on.

This method was devised to ensure that all the matches had a decent standard and no team were sacrificing any rubber.

However, many states were opposed to the format as they felt that it restricted their ability to "out-think" the opposition since the surprise element would go away.

Faced with a deadlock, the BAI officials needed to stamp their authority and hence made a chance that was not just unneccesary but also against the direction that they wanted to go in the first place.

The office bearers will once again hide behind the argument that they were trying to do something new and will correct the mistakes next time.

While it is understandable that implementation of any new rule can be a trial and error process, here BAI had just to follow the example of the World body rather than re-invent the wheel.

But consistency has rarely been BAI's strongest point. The apex body first decided that the defending national champions would have to go through the qualifying process from this year - instead of the direct entry system. But just a few days before the zonals, restored the direct entry without giving any reasons.

There have been many such cases in the last few years where there has been little reasoning behind why BAI took a particular decision or repealed it without any justification.

Thankfully, those running the sport has very little role to play in the performance of the players and India can still boast of some really world class performances in the last few years.

There is very little hope from the system.