Thomas Cup 2026: The man who cooked Dal at midnight

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Vijaydeep comes to badminton through blood. His father, Pitamber Singh, was India’s first badminton head coach at NIS Patiala. Growing up on that campus, Vijaydeep dabbled in swimming, even trained in cricket alongside Navjot Singh Sidhu under Col. CK Nayudu. But badminton pulled harder. Multiple national titles in doubles followed, as did Thomas Cup appearances in the early 90s, including the Delhi edition.

“India was never considered a contender back then. We were nowhere on the Thomas Cup radar,” he recalls.

He went on to become a doubles coach, leaving his family in Ludhiana to settle in Hyderabad. By 2022, he was in Bangkok, watching the sport he had given his life to finally arrive on the world stage.

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What the outside world didn’t know was the condition in which India had arrived.

Lakshya Sen had landed in Thailand with food poisoning. For five ties, right through to the final, he turned up and absorbed losses — deliberately, strategically — so that Srikanth and Prannoy could line up at MS2 and MS3 in better shape. By the time he faced Anthony Ginting, he was strong and hungry in every sense.

“Mentally he is very strong,” Vijaydeep says. “His attitude is — Marr jao lekin shuttle nai chhodunga.”

Within the team, the unity was total. Prannoy handled players. Srikanth, the senior, was a sounding board. Satwik and Chirag were filling Indian badminton’s biggest gap of fifty years — a doubles pair of genuine world class. The days, meal times, even downtime in hotel rooms, were filled with strategy, matchups, analysis.

“One was they got into a flow, second was they really wanted this win,” Vijaydeep says.

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Then there was the small matter of feeding them.

Vijaydeep travels with rice cookers. Plural. He can manage anything during the day, but dinner means dal chawal, non-negotiable. And for players drawn to the last two matches of the evening — matches stretching to midnight — hotel kitchens were long closed by the time they came off court.

“These players were told: take a shower and head to my room for dinner. Don’t sleep hungry.”

He learnt to make a yellow dal that his South Indian players would enjoy. Small detail. Not a small thing.

His father was known across the global badminton circuit as Guruji, and that name carried weight. When the Namdhari community in Bangkok learned it was the Indian team in town, packets of fresh food began arriving every day. The Indian embassy started coordinating, officials turning up from the Ambassador down.

But diplomats in prim suits cannot create a din.

Playing Malaysia and Indonesia in Southeast Asian arenas is an exercise in sensory warfare. Their fans bring noise — instruments, voices, frequencies that fill the hall and get inside the opposition’s heads. Vijaydeep got the Bangkok Namdharis into a huddle.

He told them about the noise problem. They told him not to worry.

“They said, ‘Humaare 20 log unke 500 ke baraabar honge.'”

They brought dhols.

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Malaysia, on their disappointed return after losing to India in the quarterfinals, called the win a fluke. Said India weren’t that strong. Wouldn’t go far. Chinese Taipei and Malaysia quietly stopped accepting Indian requests to spar. “Hum khatraa ban chuke the,” Vijaydeep says, with a chuckle. Losing to India had been unthinkable. Now they were being cautious.

Friday’s quarterfinal win over Chinese Taipei in Horsens has brought that 2022 feeling back. The players who were youngsters then — Lakshya, Satwik, Chirag — are now the experienced core. Ayush is the new Lakshya, the youngster carrying quiet belief into a tournament the world didn’t expect India to own.

“I’m getting a feeling we will do excellent again,” Vijaydeep says.

After China in the group stage, when it could have unravelled, the players met and said: this is done, let’s look forward. The belief, he says, only got stronger.

If India make the final and China are there too, it will be the rematch that Indian badminton has been quietly waiting three years to have. And somewhere, probably in a hotel room with a rice cooker humming, Vijaydeep Singh will be making dal.

The South Indians in the squad already know how he makes it now.