The Krrish Delhi Smashers overpowered hosts Banga Beats by 4-1 to keep their semifinal hopes alive in the Indian Badminton League (IBL) at Bangalore on Sunday.
After winning the tie at the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium, it helped the Smashers to haul five points and is currently placed fourth with 13 in the standings. On the other side, the Beats lost their third tie in four outings and stood fifth with nine points.
In the first men's singles, Beats' icon player Parupalli Kashyap stunned his junior B. Sai Praneeth of the Delhi Smashers, as the World No.14 won in straight games. Actually, Kashyap won by 21-15, 21-11 to score 1-0 for the Beats. Meanwhile, the Smashers returned in style to win the subsequent four matches to mark the acutely vital tie.
On the other hand, Jindapon Nichaon of the Smashers hammered Carolina Marin by 21-17, 15-21, 11-9 in a hard fought women's singles match which took nearly an hour. After this match, World No.4 combo of Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Hoeng of Malaysia squashed Carsten Mogensen and Akshay Dewalkar by 21-11, 20-21, 11-7 in the men's doubles match.
In addition, Kerala shuttler H.S. Prannoy ended up the tie for the Smashers by crushing former national champion Arvind Bhat by 21-18, 7-21, 11-8 in the second men's singles rubber.
World No.47 Prannoy used him jump smashes to good effect during the first game against his senior rival. It cannot be ignored that Bhat appeared nervous at important junctures, making errors which affected him the game. However Bhat, who was playing in his hometown, gave his best shot and entirely outplayed Prannoy in the second game, following the Beats' shuttler spearheaded the match.
In fact, the shorter third game was a close affair with both the players keeping in range of each other but Prannoy led the initiative just when it mattered and began hitting violent shots and emerged victorious at the end. Ultimately, he won the much-needed tie for his team.
In the mixed doubles match, Delhi's icon player Jwala Gutta partnered with V. Diju to get the better of Carsten Mogensen and Carolina Marin. Both of them played their second match of the day and won the match in three games to award her team the extra point. Jwala, who was playing her first match since the commencing round in New Delhi, won by 21-16, 15-21, 11-9.
