Badminton
XUV's and charter planes: Chirag Shetty's wishlist after Thomas Cup crown
Fresh off the historic Thomas Cup victory, shuttler Chirag Shetty is having quite the car saga with Mahindra chairman now personally looking into getting the World Champion the XUV700 'ASAP'.
Chirag Shetty (Source: Instagram)
If anyone has earned the rights to roll out a big, fat, happy-go-lucky wishlist, it has to be the Indian men's badminton team who made history by winning the Thomas Cup on Sunday, defeating 14-time champions Indonesia in a whitewashing 3-0 affair.
And one half of the dynamic doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, has taken up that job quite seriously as the older of the two, Shetty has been quietly and cheekily letting his wild wishes known on his Twitter, ever since the team lifted the Thomas Cup and clinched gold and the celebratory messages started pouring in.
Interestingly, when Anand Mahindra, the chairman of the Mahindra group also wrote on the team's heroic efforts to win the Cup, Chirag retweeted it with the caption: "Thank You Sir!😊 I've booked an XUV700 recently hope I can get it soon!😛😝"
The Indian billionaire was not letting this newly-crowned Thomas Cup champ's request go unnoticed as Mahindra replied to Chirag, revealing how he too was also 'in the queue (sic)' for the same car - XUV700, that he has booked for his wife.
"Since that makes the XUV7OO the Choice Of Champions we will have to work extra hard to get it to you ASAP. @vijaynakra I hope you see this! (By the way, I've ordered one for my wife & I'm still in Q! ) Sadly, the global supply chain disruptions are plaguing all car companies)" - Anand Mahindra's reply read, where he put himself in the same waiting boat as Chirag.
However, in this matter, both Chirag and Anand's hands are tied as the pandemic has affected the global supply chain of semiconductor chips, which has reportedly impacted vehicle production across all automobile manufacturers, causing this delay.
On Friday, Chirag took to his Instagram to also re-share former badminton player Anand Pawar's story of Chirag on the driver's seat of his present car with the Pawar's caption saying: Somebody please give this World Champion a new car! :) and Shetty saying 'Please do' in response, leading to quite the car saga.
Charter planes, anyone?
Just like Anand Mahindra, Air India also took to their Twitter to post about the Thomas Cup win and wrote: "#FlyAI: Congratulations to the Indian Men's Badminton Team for winning the #ThomasCup2022 beating 14-times champion Indonesia today. This victory will give wings to the dreams of all young sportspersons of our country. What a proud moment. Photo courtesy: @BAI_Media"
Seeing this as a golden opportunity like no other, Shetty had retweeted this post with the caption - "Hope we can get a charter plane back!😝😂"
Although Air India is yet to fulfil this wild request, what can be unanimously agreed on is that this group of boys deserve it all - what with the kind of history they have just created that is sure to inspire the next decade of Indian badminton. With the kind of roll this team is on, sky really would be the limit for them.
