Malaysia Thomas Cup Squad

It has been 18 yrs since Malaysia last won the Thomas Cup, and this year is seen by BAM and our naive government to have a strongest chance to win the competition again. Now I would like to analyse, base on my personal view our Thomas Cup squad for the time being.

There is no doubt that our "World No. 1s" Lee Chong Wei and Koo Kean Keat-Tan Boon Heong are the automatic choice for the team, but other than these we have no other competent players to be consider able to carry the weight of winning the cup for our nation.

In singles, we have not find any world beaters, or any potential players of high quality. There have been a few youngster who once considered as bright future stars, but they lack the opprtunity to compete in international levels. Players like Tan Chun Seang and few others who performed well during their youth tournaments time, but progress has been slow since because of one reason - BAM doesn't send them to international tournaments often enough. So they lack the major tournament's experience.

Wong Choong Han and Mohd Hafiz Hashim were once ranked in world top 10, but they are already in their 30s or approching 30s, so they are alreaady in the circuit too long, and their skill cannot improve much further. I'm not saying they are not good, but there are much better, improved players out there we simply do not have the competencies to fight. Young players are more energitic, more urge to win, and they are faster than our old legs. So I think it's time BAM put aside all their internal politics and start focusing on letting young talents get the exposures.

On the double pairs, I wonder why Zakry-Fairuzizuan still manage to get into the team! Over the last year or two, they have been playing well below par, and their results in international tournaments were very distressful to watch. Why still they are in the Thomas Cup team? Experience? I don't think they are in the team because of their skill, experience and dependability. They are in the team because someone wants them in!

Zakry and Fairuzizuan is well know to have skipped training for no reason, and they were given warning by the then head coach, Rexy Mainarky, but still they don't change their attitude, and they always come in late for training and they are not motivated in training. This pair is a big liability for Malaysia team, and in view of Fairuzizuan's reaction after the lost, I am very sure that my 6th sense is correct, someone wants them to be in the team for the sake of ****!

Another issue with BAM is they will interfere with coaches' job, although they know nothing about training program. Malaysia had already hired and fired almost all the world's top coaches, yet they are still standing at where they were, no improvement at all from out shuttlers. At the end of last year, BAM announced that they have hired Tan Kim Her without Rexy's knowledge at all, I already know there must be some agenda going on within BAM to get rid of Rexy.

Believe it or not, Rexy will sure leave Malaysia team after Thomas Cup, and I can already foresee the decline of Malaysia badminton even further. Not only Malaysia will not catch up with Chinese, Indonesian, Denmark or Korean, but they will soon lose out to teams like Japan, India and other up-coming europe teams.