India men crash out of Thomas Cup after 0-5 loss to Indonesia

India's men's badminton team completed its pathetic Thomas Cup group stage campaign with a humiliating 0-5 loss to Indonesia here on Wednesday.

India, having suffered the first loss to Thailand on Sunday in Group B, and Hong Kong on Tuesday, came into the match on Wednesday against Indonesia to play for pride as they were virtually out after the first two losses.

On Wednesday, World No.21 Ajay Jayaram was defeated by Christie Jonatan 14-21, 12-21 in just 37 minutes and later on in the doubles match Indonesia's Angga Pratama and Ricky Karanda Suwardi outclassed India's Manu Attri and Akshay Dewalkar 21-18, 21-17 in just 28 minutes to make it 2-0 in their favour.

In the men's singles event, World No.34 Sai Praneeth gave a good fight but eventually went down to Ginting Anthony 21-18, 11-21, 15-21 in 56 minutes.

Next up, India's B. Sumeeth Reddy and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy were also defeated by Gideon Markus Fernaldi and Hendra Setiawan 9-21, 18-21 in just 26 minutes.

In the final singles match, Sourabh Varma gave a tough fight to Ihsan Maulana Mustofa but the Indian was defeated 10-21, 22-20, 13-21 in one hour and four minutes.

--IANS

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