Retain old team already selected: Prakash

Bangalore, May 18 (UNI) Former All England Open Champion Prakash Padukone today asked Badminton Association of India (BAI) to send the old team selected for the Sudirman Badminton tournament scheduled to be held in Malaysia next month.

Urging the Union Sports Ministry to intervene to defuse the crisis arising over dropping of National Champion Chetan Anand and Doubles Champions Jwala Gutta and Shruti from the team, Padukone told newspersons here that it was only a communication gap that had created the crisis and it could be resolved by retaining the old team.

He said there was still time to conduct a two-week camp as the tournament was scheduled to begin only on June nine. All the players should be instructed to attend the camp and if any player fails to attend, the camp could be dropped.

Padukone also took exception conducting long camps, saying that for senior players such a long camp was not necessary. ''Such long camps may be necessary for junior players, but not for seniors.

However, Camps are necessary for all and seniors should not stand on prestige'', he added.

He said ''May be the six-month long camp which was not attended by Chetan Anand, Jwala and Shruti, clashed with the main international tournaments and hence the players did not participate in the camp.'' UNI