Acclaimed Indonesian coach Yusuf Jauhari in Bangalore for camp

Ever since Prakash Padukone trained in Indonesia in 1977, India has often sought the expertise of the badminton superpower.

Yusuf Jauhari is the latest of a clutch of illustrious names who have helped Indian badminton. Jauhari will work with the trainees of the Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy for a month before a possible move to the national centre in Hyderabad. The academy has requisitioned the services of the accomplished coach, who has groomed several well-known players of the 1990s, including Candra Wijaya, Indra Wijaya and Mia Audina.

Badminton has undergone revolutionary changes since the 1970s, but Indonesia’s standing as a great resource centre for badminton remains. Several Indian contingents have trained in Indonesia, and the Indians have also sought the help of their coaches at camps in India. Hadi Sugianto was the first Indonesian coach to work with the Indian team; although he was in charge only for a couple of years, he helped groom some world-class doubles combinations.

Sugianto was followed by Atik Jauhari (Yusuf’s elder brother), who was part of the national squad for a few years. The current national doubles coach is Edwin Iriawan, also of Indonesia.

Yusuf Jauhari was in charge of the Indonesian under-19 team when the likes of Candra Wijaya, Indra Wijaya, Ronald Susilo and Mia Audina were coming up. In 2000, he left for Sweden for a 10-year-stint. Recently, the Padukone Academy had sent three of its most promising boys – Lakshya Sen, Gulshan Kumar Karthikey and Rahul Bharadwaj – under coach TR Balachandran for a stint in his academy. “Coach Balachandran invited me to Bangalore, and that’s why I’m here,” said Jauhari. “My brother informed me that Gopichand was looking for an Indonesian coach. I got in touch with him, and I’m awaiting the contract and the dates.”

Jauhari was a contemporary of Liem Swie King, Hadiyanto and Imelda Wigoeno before injury scuttled his international dreams. He turned to coaching, and achieved great success. As coach of the Indonesian under-19 team, he mentored the likes of Candra Wijaya, Indra Wijaya, Ronald Susilo and Mia Audina, before moving to Sweden in 2000. After a ten-year stint, and a brief sortie in Malaysia, he is likely to shift base to India.

Jauhari has an interesting answer to the inevitable question about Indonesia’s decline as a badminton power over the last decade. “The problem is that international players turn into coaches after their playing career,” he says. “But coaches must have good science. In Indonesia, a player retires and become a coach. That’s not good. A good coach must have experience of at least three years. They must first coach in a club before going for the national team. You also need to learn science, you have to learn psychology, physiology, about making a badminton programme… In Indonesia not many coaches can make a programme. I don’t think Indonesia can come up again in the near future.”

It’s a pertinent question, and one that all badminton-playing nations must ask themselves: shouldn’t every coach undergo mandatory training before taking up important assignments?