GUWAHATI: Continuing with its attempts to give exposure to talented youngsters, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) has selected seven young stars in the women's squad to represent India at the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships to be headed by Assam's Ashmita Chaliha.
World No. 24 HS Prannoy will be leading the 13-member Indian team at the Tong Yun Kai Cup 2019 - the second edition of the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships slated to be held at Hong Kong from March 19-24.
Ashmita, a 19-year-old prodigy, already has a couple of Badminton World Federation titles under her name and even reached the semi-finals of the Nationals. The teen will get support from Nagpur shuttler Vaishnavi Bhale who got selected for the Uber Cup last year. Bhale too proved her credentials by grabbing a bronze medal at the Nationals.
11 teams have been divided into four groups in this six-day biennial competition. Team India has been placed in Group B, comprising Chinese Taipei and Singapore. The top two teams from each group will advance to the quarter-finals.
India reached the quarter-finals in the last edition where they lost narrowly to Thailand.
Squad:
Men: HS Prannoy, Sourabh Verma, MR Arjun, Shlok Ramchandran, Arun George, Sanyam Shukla
Women: Ashmita Chaliha, Vaishnavi Bhale, Shikha Gautam, Ashwini K Bhat, Rutaparna Panda, Arathi Sara Sunil, UK Mithula