This is a generation that grew up watching Japanese automaton Kento Momota dominate 2018 and 2019. So when Jagsher Singh Khangurra, India’s World Junior Championships bronze medallist, and Dev Ruparelia, bound for the Youth Olympics, both thick friends incidentally, talk of basing their game on a sturdy defence, they are describing how their early coaches saw the Momota way: an organic path to develop their wards slowly.A lack of strength in the formative years makes the defensive detour a safe choice when you don’t have the horsepower to hit the road hard on a straight attacking freeway. “You can frustrate the opponent by retrieving, knowing he will get restless if he can’t finish the shuttle,” explains Ruparelia, a top junior from Nala Sopara-Virar in Mumbai, who is headed for the Youth Olympics in Dakar.He has the overhead crosscourt hit and a body smash, but those are infrequently summoned. Plan A is to strike a good length and wear out the opponent’s patience. “I know I can switch to attack if needed,” he says, though the switch is a slow conversion from defence to offence, not a flick of a button, and needs a few more strokes, for which they train. The Ayush Shetty path is not open to them because they are not 6ft 4in. “But Jagsher will eventually have to build a good hit, which will come with strength. Even Kodai Naraoka has started attacking,” his coach Sagar Chopda reminds.Ruparelia did not grow up watching badminton. His divinities were “Sachin bhagwaan and Kohli”, like his father’s. He lived and loved carrom in the far-flung northern suburbs of Mumbai’s Western line, where his father is a businessman. He entered a local tournament, lost pitifully and went home sobbing, whereupon his dad extracted a promise that he would learn badminton instead, and took him to Club One. He met Jagsher in 2021, coming out of the lockdown, and paired with him at one point, both sharing a defensive-tinted style of play.Momota’s reign was over by then, but the defensive path endured in pockets from Nabha in Punjab to Nala Sopara in Maharashtra. Ruparelia picked up good results during a month-long tournament circuit in Europe: four weeks, two titles, one quarter-final. His coach had prepared him for the pushes, lifts and half smashes. “By defence I don’t mean I run around aimlessly,” he is at pains to clarify. “I can attack later,” he says, after winning the trials for the Youth Games. “India has medals there but never a gold,” he says, backing himself to the hilt, even if the World Juniors did not go to plan.He digs the games of Lee Chong Wei and Shi Yuqi too, hoping to riff off their attacking kills.There is a school of thought that ultra-defensive players, such as former World Junior silver medallist Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian and the new brat pack, might benefit from the 15-point game that arrives in January, by staying sturdy and piling pressure on attackers in a hurry to make mistakes. Sankar Muthusamy Subramanian. (BAI)They tend to be feisty and defiant about their style too, a quality coaches appreciate, even as they insist the players need that one big finishing kill, because nobody can retrieve endlessly. The junior crop is not exactly taking after Ayush Shetty, barring Rounak Chouhan, who has a naturally attacking game. The junior medallists are still going through the defensive rigours, hoping an attacking weapon can be added to the armour slowly. Kodai made the World Championships final this year after injecting a stinging hit into his game, but it took him two years. Simply put, it is easier said than done.