India drawn in group B alongside Malaysia for Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023

UAE and Kazakhstan are the other countries in the group.

India have been drawn alongside Malaysia, UAE and Kazakhstan in Group B of the upcoming Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023. The tournament will take place in Dubai from February 14 to 19. A total of 17 countries will participate in the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships. Teams have been divided into three groups of four teams each and one group with five.

The draw for the tournament took place on January 31 (Tuesday) in the Dubai Sports Council. India's badminton ace PV Sindhu was present as the Guest of Honour. China, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia are the top-seeded teams. Malaysia, among them, will be one of India's opponents in group B. This is the first time the tournament is making a return since 2019. The 2021 edition of the Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023 Groups

Group A - China, Korea, Singapore, and Uzbekistan

Group B - Malaysia, India, Kazakhstan, and UAE.

Group C - Indonesia, Thailand, Bahrain, Syria, and Lebanon.

Group D - Japan, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong China, and Pakistan.

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The Indian squad for the Asia mixed Championships was announced earlier this year with top players making the cut automatically based on their performance and ranking while the rest had to attend the qualifiers and make the cut.

India squad Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships 2023

Men’s singles: Lakshya Sen, HS Prannoy 

Women’s singles: PV Sindhu, Aakarshi Kashyap

Men’s doubles: Satwiksairaj Ranikreddy/Chirag Shetty, Krishna Prasad Garga/Vishnuvardhan Goud Pranjala

Women’s doubles: Treesa Jolly/Gayatri Gopichand, Ashwini Bhat/Shikha Gautam

Mixed doubles: Ishaan Bhatnagar/Tanisha Crasto

Saina Nehwal once again did not attend the trials and is solely concentrating on individual events. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty recently withdrew from the BWF 300 Thailand Masters and probably might miss the event as well.

There has been no confirmed news on this but with the prestigious All England Championships coming up in March the athletes would want to be fit. The number Indian pair withdrew from the BWF 750 Indian Opena nd did not take part in the BWF 500 Indonesian Masters as well.

India finished last in the group stages in the previous edition held in 2019 losing to Chinese Taipei and Singapore. The top Indian players did not take part in 2019 and this will be a good chance for India to finish at the podium. PV Sindhu is slowly recovering from injury and if she gets back to form then India has a fair chance to finish on a positive note.