The Paris Olympics 2024 came to an end days ago when India finished with a total of six medals, five of them being bronze and one being silver. Although there were several memorable performances from the Indian contingent, there were also several fourth-place finishes where the athletes came agonisingly close to securing a podium finish but missed out in the end. The Indian badminton contingent, for the first time in the past three editions of the Olympics, did not win any medal, with Lakshya Sen's fourth-place finish in men's singles being the best performance this time. And Sunil Gavaskar, while describing the shuttler's performance at the Paris Olympics 2024, used Rohit Sharma's viral stump mic comment when he said he was 'garden mein ghoomne wala' (one who roams about in a garden). Saina Nehwal Reacts After Being Called ‘Kangana Ranaut of Indian Sports’, Says ‘Ghar Pe Bait Ke Comment Karna Easy Hai and Sports Khelna Difficult’.

The former cricketer, in his column for Sportstar, backed Prakash Padukone after he had called for the players to take responsibility after Lakshya Sen's fourth-place finish. Padukone had received some backlash for his public rebuke, but Gavaskar stood firmly beside the badminton legend. "To then see a 20-17 and 7-0 lead being squandered off in the semifinal (vs Viktor Axelsen) and then lose the bronze medal match (vs Lee Zee Jia) after winning the first game comfortably must have been gut-wrenching indeed. He, Vimal Kumar, the BAI, and the government's TOPS had done everything possible, but when it came to the crunch, Lakshya was, in the famous words of the Indian cricket team captain, 'garden mein ghoomne wala," a part of the column which Gavaskar wrote, read. The cricket legend interestingly had earlier, in an Instagram post, called Lakshya Sen his badminton hero after the great Prakash Padukone.  PV Sindhu, Lakshya Sen, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty Pull Out of Japan Open 2024.

He also wrote, "He (Prakash Padukone) said that the players today get all the backing and facilities from their Federations and the government too. Therefore, they should take responsibility for their performances too. It was a point well-made and well-articulated too, without pointing fingers at anybody. Yet as it invariably happens in our country, which again is a champion at reading between so-called lines and imagining unintended poisoned arrows, we were quick to jump on him and denounce his comments rather than take the time to digest them and then come out with our comparatively uninformed views. If a player is not going to take responsibility for his performance, then who is? So what wrong did he say?"

Gavaskar also felt that Lakshya Sen looked as if he lost concentration in his semifinal as well as bronze medal matches. Sen had taken a 7-0 lead against eventual gold medal winner Viktor Axelsen in the first game of the semifinal match before going on to lose the contest 20-22, 14-21. Against Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia, Sen won the first game 21-13 but lost the next two to lose the match. "For those who watched both the semifinal and the bronze medal matches, it did appear that Lakshya had lost his trend of thought and concentration in the way he looked at his racquet as he sipped from his water bottle in between points or at the changeovers," Gavaskar wrote.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 14, 2024 09:24 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).