HS Prannoy
File photo of India's men's singles shuttler HS PrannoyTOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images

India will take on top seeds China in a must-win Group A encounter of Thomas Cup 2018in Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday, May 22.

When is the Thomas and Uber Cup tie and how to watch it live in India

The Group A tie between India and China will start at 7 pm local time, 5:30 pm IST and 1 pm BST.

Star Sports 2 and Star Sports 2 HD will provide live television coverage of the match in India. Live stream will be available on Hotstar.

Thomas Cup: India vs China preview

Indian men's team are in danger of getting eliminated from the world team championships as a defeat today will all but end their chances of reaching the quarter-final.

India are on the third spot of the four-team Group A table behind China and France.

Thomas and Uber Cup Group A standings
Thomas Cup 2018 - Group A standings as of 12 pm IST, May 22.

The Asian giants suffered a shock defeat against France on the opening day of the tournament on Sunday. In the absence of HS Prannoy, who was rested, the men's shuttlers came up with an insipid display against the European minnow.

Barring men's singles shuttler Sai Praneeth, all the other shuttlers suffered defeats in their respective rubbers.

The absence of top-ranked doubles pairs of Manu Attri/B Sumeeth Reddy and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty was clearly felt as the likes of Arjun MR and Ramchandran Shlok, Arun George and Sanyam Shukla were beaten in straight games.

However, India came back strong in their second tie on Monday, May 21 against the Australians. With Sameer Verma, who suffered a straight-game defeat on Sunday, was dropped, the likes of Prannoy, Praneeth and Sen stepped up and won their rubbers without dropping a game.

Arjun and Ramchandran also clinched a straight-game win while Arun and Sanyam took three games to win their doubles rubber.

India face an uphill task against China as the Asian powerhouses have not lost a match yet in the ongoing tournament. Lin Dan & co. crushed Australia 5-0 on Sunday before handing a similar thrashing to France on the following day.

The Chinese Thomas Cup team have rotated their players well. Reigning Olympic champion Chen Long, who played the first two ties, and their top-ranked doubles pairing might be given a breather today.

On the other hand, India will field a full-strength squad, led by Prannoy. It remains to be seen if Verma will make a return for tie at the expense of impressive Sen.

Global live stream and TV listings

  • US: NBC Sports, NBCSports.com, OlympicChannel.com
  • Malaysia: TV: Astro Supersport 4, Live stream: Astro Go
  • Thailand: True Visions