With the conclusion of the week-long Nationwide coaching camp at Bengaluru’s Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports activities Excellence on Monday, all eyes are on the panel of desk tennis selectors to announce the Indian squad for the Commonwealth Video games at Birmingham in July-August this 12 months.
The 4 selectors - S. Ramaswamy, Rajat Kathuria, N. R. Indu and native resident Archana Vishwanath - arrived on the venue on the penultimate day of the camp, on Sunday. This means, they didn't deem it essential to observe these gamers intently in motion earlier than making up their minds. The formal workforce announcement is probably going on Tuesday.
To pick a four-man workforce, eight gamers - Sharath Kamal (Nationwide rank 1), G. Sathiyan (8), Sanil Shetty (2), Harmeet Desai (3), Manush Shah (4), Manav Thakkar (5) Anirban Ghosh (6) and Fidel R. Snehit (11)
- had been referred to as for the camp.
RELATED | Desk Tennis Federation to spend Rs 66 lakh on CoA, 55 lakh on prize cash for 2021-22 season
Equally, for the four-player girls squad, Manika Batra (Nationwide rank 33), Archana Kamath (37), Sreeja Akula (1), Reeth Rishya (2), Diya Chitale (3), Swastika Ghosh (4), Ayhika Mukherjee (8) and Sutirtha Mukherjee (9) had been invited.
Going by the latest present of intent of the selectors, Sharath, Sathiyan, Harmeet, Sanil, Manika, Archana, Sreeja and Reeth might make the minimize. Amongst these, solely Sanil might face a distant risk from fellow left-hander Manush.
For starters, within the Commonwealth Video games, a most of three entries every in males singles, girls singles and combined doubles, plus two every in males doubles and ladies doubles are permitted from a rustic.
Within the final version, India exceeded expectations by returning with three gold, two silver and three bronze medals - together with a sweep of the workforce titles.
In all chance, as in 2018, India is ready to area Sharath, Sathiyan and Harmeet in singles and the combos of Sharath-Sathiyan and Harmeet-Sanil. The one change might come if Manush replaces Sanil.
Equally, in 2018 India opted for Manika, Madhurika Patkar and Mouma Das in singles moreover Manika-Mouma and Sutirtha-Pooja Sahasrabudhe. This time, it might properly be Manika, Sreeja and Reeth in singles. In
doubles, Manika-Archana and Sreeja-Reeth pairs seem as apparent selections.
In combined doubles, too, Sathiyan-Archana, Sharath-Sreeja and one other make-shift mixture will flip up.
Not too long ago, the Committee of Directors (CoA) highlighted TTFI’s selection-related wrong-doings on its web site and elaborated on how some deserving gamers had been disregarded.
Sadly, an analogous instance is more likely to observe.
RELATED | Former decathlete, shuttler to select desk tennis workforce for CWG
This time, Manika and Archana are among the many probables, regardless of inadequate factors in singles to fulfill the laid-down eligibility standards. However the selectors, very like their predecessors, conveniently thought-about the world rating - Manika-Archana’s fourth spot within the doubles - to justify their selections.
With this, the door seems firmly shut for performing kids Diya, Swastika, and more-experienced Ayhika and Sutirtha.
Sadly, these gamers can pay the value for not funding themselves sufficient to play doubles in worldwide competitions.
Solely the opposite day within the Delhi Excessive Courtroom, in the course of the course of the listening to of the Manika-TTFI case, a counsel representing the federal government categorically said that attending the SAI-funded Nationwide camps was not obligatory for the gamers. This assertion helped Manika’s trigger who had questioned the TTFI’s resolution to drop her from the workforce for the Asian championship as a result of she determined to steer clear of the
Nationwide camp at Sonepat. In any case, this was not the primary time Manika missed or made a token look within the Nationwide camps.
This being the background, it was attention-grabbing when the CoA, in a letter dated Might 9, 2022, knowledgeable the probables that “following the camp, the panel of nationwide selectors will announce the Nationwide workforce for the Commonwealth Video games,” there was not a murmur. All, together with Manika, had been in attendance all through the camp, besides the selectors who arrived in time to observe a session or two.
As well as, there was no chosen and introduced standards in place for choice in the course of the camp. No choice matches had been performed. Indications had been that the main target was primarily on doubles. It seems, for
the selectors, coach S. Raman stays the go-to man earlier than saying what appears fairly apparent.
Coaches Raman, Anandita Chakraborty and Anirban Nandi had been round. It might be recalled that Raman and Anandita had been provisionally named as ‘managers’ of the workforce for the CWG, as per the undated Lengthy record of CWG probables on the TTFI web site.
Since Arup Basak and Subhajit Saha, named as the lads's coach and the ladies's coach within the Lengthy record of probables for CWG, didn't attend the camp, there could possibly be change.
Raman, whose core competence is teaching, appears an apparent alternative as a coach. Nevertheless, this might result in a blatant violation of a latest Delhi Excessive Courtroom directive that daunts Nationwide Sports activities
Federations from sending coaches who personal/run coaching Academies, with the travelling Nationwide groups.
Whether or not the selectors retain Raman as “supervisor” and let him do in Birmingham what he does greatest - that’s teaching - stays to be seen.
