“I feel like it’s grown to the point where we’re not seniors, juniors, we’re not badminton teammates, we’re just friends.”
This is what Gokul Sundararaghavan, Vice-Captain of the Ashoka Badminton Team, had to say when asked about the relationship dynamic among the players. When friendship and camaraderie are at the core of a sports team, it becomes easy to see why it has grown to be a recognisable force on campus and on the court. Now, with Ashoka’s own sports fest, Agneepath, on the horizon, this team dynamic and the culture the leaders have built will be a significant factor in the team’s performance. A performance that the team hopes is the key to propelling them to the top step of the podium.
Rather than functioning as a casual sports group, the Ashoka badminton team operates with a fixed and deliberately planned training schedule that players are expected to follow consistently. This sense of routine has become central to the team’s growth, especially as leadership placed greater emphasis on attendance and preseason preparation. These measures are not framed as strict enforcement, but as shared expectations that reflect the team’s evolving seriousness. This consistency has translated into improved performance, signalling a shift from simply playing together to training with clear intent.
At the time of this conversation, the players were gearing up for the preseason, the importance of which cannot be overstated: “I think the most important thing, of course, is endurance and stamina.” These players must play and come back to speed after a long break and get back to the basics, because as Gokul says, “pre-season will go a long way in developing game fitness, because even if at the end of the day you’re, like, just going to the gym and doing weight training, like, playing in a game is very different. And I think that is fitness, as well as, like, just clarity of strokes, precision, sharpness, all those things are going to be paramount takeaways from the pre-season.”
Badminton is also a sport where improvement is difficult in isolation. Unlike other racquet sports, players cannot train effectively on their own; progress depends on regularly playing with partners who challenge and complement each other. This becomes especially significant in doubles, where performance relies as much on understanding a partner’s tendencies as on individual skill. As Gokul explains, finding the right pairing over time helped him play better, as familiarity made shot selection and on-court decisions more instinctive. For this reason, selection within the team is rarely based on a single trial or standout session. Instead, it reflects sustained form, consistency in training, and how well players function in different combinations, reinforcing the idea that development in badminton is cumulative rather than instantaneous.
Gokul also constantly reiterated the importance of athletes — not just badminton players — to understand that players better than them didn’t become that good overnight. It is motivation to put in the hours, not something to hang your head over. If everyone gave up because there was someone better than them out there, the sporting landscape would look very different. He explained that instead of operating in fear of someone being better than you, it’s better to embrace it and learn through matches, as he did when he first joined the team.
There are many takeaways from our conversation with Gokul. Still, perhaps the biggest one is his awareness of what being a student-athlete means and why, as a leader, it’s so important to foster a team culture that promotes friendships and camaraderie in the name of the game and becoming better players. In a sporting environment that demands both commitment and collaboration, the team’s emphasis on structure and sustained improvement offers a glimpse into how far they have come and how much further they aim to go. Here’s wishing the badminton team the best for their upcoming tournaments.
