Can Indian paddlers get it together?
MUMBAI: In an ideal world, with little under two months to go for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), India’s paddlers would be trying to blend their respective schedules in order to train collectively as a team on the table. Instead, some have been sparring individually in the court over the last few days.
Selection issues before a mega multi-nation event aren’t new in Indian sport. Even so, the legal battles and musical chairs around the Indian table tennis teams’ selection for 2022 CWG in Birmingham next month have been extraordinary. It has involved three players firing petitions in the Delhi high court seeking “justice”, and one selection U-turn by the Committee of Administrators (COA) running the national federation whose selection criteria has been met, neglected and altered.
That U-turn, in turn, has also been questioned with a fourth petition in court filed by Archana Kamath, who was initially named in the squad before being excluded. On Thursday, the Karnataka high court ordered a stay on the revised selection list until the next date of hearing on June 22.
This follows days after Diya Chitale—the India No 3 initially named as standby—went to court against her exclusion in the four-member women’s squad. The selection committee chaired by COA member SD Mudgil drafted her in the squad while removing Kamath, the world No 4 in the doubles charts alongside Manika Batra. Keeping the merits and demerits of the flip-flopping criteria and the hullabaloo of the petition-slapping controversy aside, the question is: how big an impact could this messy build-up potentially have on the team dynamics and chemistry of the defending champions going into the CWG and during it?
“It will play a role in affecting the team dynamics,” Neha Aggarwal, the lone Indian woman paddler at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said. “Since we don’t play enough team matches in our sport, generally before any of these major events the team comes together for a lot of team bonding. I’m not sure how much that will be achievable this time.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams had won gold in the 2018 CWG. Add six more medals to that in singles, doubles and mixed and Indian table tennis contingent left Gold Coast high in spirits and success. Apart from the individual brilliance from the likes of Manika and Sharath Kamal, what stood out was the combined effort in the team events.
That’s where it could get interesting in Birmingham. While the men’s team of Sharath, G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai and Sanil Shetty has been left untouched (Manush Shah remains on standby), the change—with further potential tweaks—in the women’s team shakes things up completely.
As things stand with Coa’s latest team, the fourth-ranked pair of Manika and Archana— with a win at the WTT Contender in Slovenia last November and a semi-final at the WTT Star Contender Doha this year— will be replaced by a fresh combination of Manika and Diya, the 19-year-old who won her first WTT youth title last month.
Manika, 26, and the teenaged Diya will only have the planned week-long camp in Porto for the teams in early July to build towards forming a potent doubles combination. Even if Archana has her way in making a last-minute re-entry into the squad depending on how the court case in Bengaluru goes, the youngster would hardly be in the right frame of mind heading into the preparatory camp. And that probably goes for every member of the women’s contingent, whose names have been dragged into these court petitions.
“You can imagine how upset she was at that time (when her name was excluded from the squad). And she still perhaps is a little bit. She is a strong girl, and she is holding up well. But no doubt it’s been a tough few days for her and for us,” Archana’s
father Girish Kamath said on Thursday.
“Hopefully, all this is behind us soon, and they get back to playing table tennis with the racquet than the court of law,” he added.
That would have to happen with some semblance of individual form and team camaraderie in CWG. Aggarwal, the 2005 junior national champion, felt that this being the first-ever CWG outing for those other than Manika could be an advantage. “All three would want to prove themselves. And Manika would be looking to defend what she had won last time. So, all of them should be motivated and hungry,” Aggarwal said. “Let’s be hopeful, for we have a realistic chance of winning a medal. There’s another month to get it sorted.”