Kidambi Srikanth spearheaded India’s 4-1 mauling of Kazakhstan in their opening group match of the Asia Team Badminton Championships here on Tuesday.
Srikanth, the up and coming Lakshya Sen and Subhankar Dey won their respective singles matches easily.
Srikanth took just 23 minutes to beat Dmitriy Panarin 21-10, 21-7 while Sen was even quicker, notching up a 21-13, 21-8 win over Artur Niyazov in 21 minutes. Dey beat Khaitmurat Kulmatov 21-11, 21-5 in 26 minutes in the third singles.
B Sai Praneeth, who was not fielded in the singles on Tuesday, teamed up with Chirag Shetty in the doubles, but lost to the Kazakh pair of Niyazov and Panarin 21-18, 16-21, 19-21. However, MR Arjun and Dhruv Kapila beat the Kazakh duo of Nikita Bragin and Khaitmurat Kulmatov 21-14, 21-8 in the second doubles match.
