Return to the Badminton Court

It has been nearly two years since I last stepped in to the badminton court. Well, thanks to my new colleagues, Desmond and Chiang (along with a host of other company stalwarts), I've now dared to venture back to the game of badminton once again. My ankle injury is not yet completely healed, so I'm still cautious about dancing all around the court chasing the shuttlecock. Better not take chances - my German boss has before injured his tendon as a result of a ill-fated friendly game in Taiwan!

I took this opportunity to get myself a pair of badminton shoes. Previously, I played using my tennis shoes, which sort of served as a multi-purpose shoe for all occasions. That status was of course revoked when I discovered (the hard way) that tennis shoes have zero traction on wet ground....

Anyway, the rest of my gear is the same. My old racket's still strung (smash as hard as we can, we can't match the power of real professional players, so no chance of snapping the strings). Shuttlecocks are "expendable" - a tube of a dozen now retails for roughly RM40~RM50, depending on brand. In our experience, the expensive ones seem to last longer, though, once again, our non-pro smashes are partly responsible for their prolonged lifespan.

The biggest shocker was the new scoring system! I tell you - I no longer know how to count the score and figure out the serves!

The latest scoring system as per Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badminton#Scoring_system_and_service

Hopefully it stays that way - I can't imagine changing the rules of the game, for whatever reason. Just a bane to purists of the sport!

So now I try to get off early from work every Friday to join my colleagues for an hour of badminton at the Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan SJK Malim, opposite Taman ASEAN. This is proving to be quite a challenge in itself, as some enterprising soul booked the court from 6.00pm to 7.00pm. Not so easy to do when you have a job like mine.

Well, speaking of badminton, tonight (or rather last night, as it's way past midnight now) was the Semi-finals of the 2010 Thomas & Uber Cup. Malaysia was up against China. So, no badminton session today. Unfortunately, due to work commitments, and attending to tiny family members, by the time I actually sat down to watch the game, I found out that it was all over for Malaysia. Hmm, at least, from the interview of a sad-looking Misbun Sidek (current coach for the Malaysian team), and the empty chairs in the background, I sort of guessed that China won. Sadly, scrolling through the Astro guide, I found that there would be no replay / delayed telecast later. Sigh, Astro was actually quite notorious for repeats, except now - just when you expect one.... :(

Well, good effort from the National Team to have made it this far - hope they grow stronger with this experience and double their efforts for the next time round!