Srikanth Kidambi’s delightful game, with influences ranging from MS Dhoni’s finishing to SS Rajamouli’s creativity

Kidambi Srikanth in QF action against Toma Popov at the Malaysia Masters 2025. (BWF / BadmintonPhoto)

The 32-year-old grew up in an affluent landlord’s family in the fertile Andhra plains, but his surroundings – what he observed around, what he thought of and noticed, how he viewed life with its ebbs and flows – were extremely eclectic. His influences – from sport to movies to art to fashion and even watch designs – came from a breathtaking breadth. Recently married to one of India’s finest movie fashion designers and stylists, Shravya Varma, Srikanth has remained a very private celebrity, letting his game do all his bashful brand building.

On court, he loved the creativity (and comparatively lesser pressure) of badminton doubles, and could geek out on the minutiae of shot-making in the company of friends who played the sport for fun, though he kept his thoughts to himself and stayed respectfully aloof from peers who were elites competing for the same prize, internationally.

Even today, some random junior at the Gopichand Academy is likely to have had shared a long discourse on some niche aspect of badminton with Srikanth, and generously offered secrets of his trade, rather than his contemporaries, coaches or sparring mates. He’s not even trying to keep a secret, it’s just that he is very instinctive about who he has conversations with – choosy, like his strokeplay.

Unfailingly polite and kind, his aloofness got mistaken for attitude (as happens with most), but yakking about the sport just isn’t his thing. He’s quite like Taufik Hidayat or Lin Dan that way.

Srikanth was that rarity who needed to be persuaded to take up singles, and leave his laid-back nature from doubles behind, and urged to own the spotlight. He knows he plays some brilliant badminton, and he still hates the preening needed to be labelled a star despite being a World Championship silver medallist.

India’s most enigmatic shuttler too surrounded himself with friends and their favourite pastime was discussing amateurish collaborative story scripts of big-screen movies they would make in an alt world, with Srikanth being the most vocal about details of elaborate scenes. A fan of one of India’s most successful directors, SS Rajamouli, Srikanth saw the grandiose Telugu movies in their large stylistic scope, and like Ariadne of Inception, was the architect of labyrinthine dreams among his close group of friends. It’s not that all this distracted him from badminton, just that he was not going to settle for the brawny, slam-bang one-dimensional men’s singles game, labouring away on slow courts soaked in retrieving ennui.

His badminton philosophy hasn’t been entirely dreamy and unrealistic. A massive fan of MS Dhoni and how he chased down totals in his prime, Srikanth could break down the pinpoint, pragmatic Dhoni approach in batting in cricket – the endgame soaking of pressure, backing himself for clutch and choosing the precise moment to attack the opponent, while talking cricket. This past week in Kuala Lumpur, Srikanth has mastered the endgame, a chase of sorts, after trailing opponents several times, in ways that are straight from the Dhoni playbook. He was also a big fan of staying calm – not fretting about performing aggression because athletes ought to.

When you look back, that whole bunch of shuttlers under Pullela Gopichand – Parupalli Kashyap, Guru Saidutt, HS Prannoy, Sameer and Sourabh Verma and B Sai Praneeth, as well as Srikanth – they immersed themselves in the art of badminton, while Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu were slashing away at titles. The men took their time to win, but the badminton fundamentals were pristine, scholarly and box-office watchable.

Once, when he lost a Nationals semifinal at Pune in 2023, his victorious opponent had his jaw on the floor, as at least 200 fans queued up in a disciplined file to take Srikanth’s autographs, even after being beaten. The game was breathtaking with shots imprinted on many minds, and the disappointing loss and shoddy endurance forgiven, because you couldn’t watch a Srikanth match and not become a fan. Indonesians sent him teddy bears and flowers and sang nasal ditties and SRK songs when he played at the Istora Senayan, The Lord’s of badminton.

The frustrating losses over the last three years, however, have tested the patience and cardiac health of Indian fans. It is to his enduring credit that no one rudely asks him to retire, though there were unkind remarks that he should move to doubles, as if that’s easy. It’s mostly down to injuries and fitness – shabby stamina levels don’t allow the style and speed his game needs. Those need discipline, which he has recently propped up. His coaches admit he’s been working exceedingly hard, though for someone with his game style and quality of shots, he ought to be winning more, playing better.

Malaysia final at 32, is not the beginning of the world, like his failures weren’t the end of the world – as coach Gopichand always told him. For someone with such fluid court movements, and now injury-free, if he hits a good patch, 2025 could be very similar to 2017. Paradoxically, it helps that the Olympic medal is mostly out of the picture. The race to qualify always drove him to destructive desperation that aggravated injuries, and the Rio 2016 loss in quarters pushed him deep into depression. He was far too good a player to forget how to play beautifully, and mercifully, the game retains its best facets, with no ugly jaggings of muscular metronome hitting jutting out.

Kidambi Srikanth celebrates his win over Toma Popov at the Malaysia Masters 2025. (BWF / BadmintonPhoto)

However, Srikanth would know intuitively that just like Lin Dan and Lee Chong Wei, his game needs to evolve and lose its 2016 hangover when he mesmerised. The same strokes he played then are picked by fortified defenses of new players now, and his game is – to put it bluntly – properly read by opponents.

Srikanth has twice lost to Li Shifeng, that Chinese bulldozer-with-biceps. The Asian Games team event was particularly scarring. But the Sunday final will be a test of whether Srikanth’s new workouts can work against the likes of Viktor Axelsen, Anders Antonsen and the rally machines. The dribble-smash-push-tap took him into the final, a pleasant surprise. But is he physically strong enough to kick that gear needed to beat Shi Yuqi or Li Shifeng?

You can’t deny what Srikanth has done for Indian badminton though – a Finals Sunday after eons, with an India-China cracker to announce the end of the dark eclipse. The Guntur Gong has sounded a click turn, in the wheel of time. India will watch badminton again.