Explained: The selection mess surrounding India’s table tennis team for 2022 Commonwealth Games-Sports News , Firstpost

Table Tennis representational image

The Indian table tennis federation is back in the news and once again for all the wrong reasons. Earlier, in February this year, the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) was suspended by the Delhi High Court for its “sorry state of affairs”.

Subsequently, a committee of Administrators (CoA) was formed under the leadership of retired Justice Gita Mittal to look after running of the body. The committee also includes former decathlete SD Mudgil and advocate Chetan Mittal.

The recent controversy has been sparked by the women’s table tennis team picked for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Paddler Archana Kamath has been included in the four-member women’s squad despite not meeting the existing criteria. The selection of Kamath has led to protests from the players who were excluded including Diya Chitale who has filed a writ petition in Delhi HC to stay CWG team selection.

We take a look at the whole controversy in detail.

What created the controversy?

On 1 June, the CWG squads were picked after a week-long national camp at the Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence in Bengaluru. The men’s team consists of Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai. Manush Shah has been picked as the standby. The selectors picked Manika Batra, Archana Kamath, Sreeja Akula, Reeth Rishya for the women’s squad with Diya Chitale as the standby. And it is after this that all hell broke loose.

Sutirtha Mukherjee, part of the 2018 CWG gold medal-winning team, Swastika Ghosh and Ayhika Mukherjee were left out while Manika and Archana made it to the squad despite not meeting the eligibility criteria. While Manika is the highest-ranked Indian player at 39, it’s the selection of Kamath that has triggered the controversy.

The current selection policy gives 50 per cent weightage to domestic performances, 30 per cent to international and 20 per cent to the discretion of the selectors. In the case of domestic performances, points are allocated to the top-10 national players; 50 points are given to the top-ranked player and five to the 10th-placed paddler. In the case of international performances, 30 points are awarded to the top-ranked player and three to the 10th. The remaining 20 points are left to the discretion of the selection committee. However, generally, all paddlers are given these 20 points. A paddler needs to score 51 points or more to get selected for the team.

According to the above criteria, Manika and Kamath, due to their poor national rankings, could not have been selected ahead of India’s No 3 Chitale and No 4 Swastika.

Why was Kamath selected?

Kamath has made it to the side to partner with Manika in the women’s doubles. The duo is currently ranked No 4 in the world in women’s doubles.

How have the players reacted?

Swastika took to Twitter after the announcement of the squad and demanded justice be done.

“I am senior India rank 4 and according to existing criteria of selection process I’m No 4, but in spite of that I’m dropped from Indian’s women’s team for the Commonwealth Games team. Please give me justice,” Ghosh tweeted while also tagging PMOIndia and union sports minister, Anurag Thakur.

Chitale has filed a writ petition in Delhi HC after being overlooked for the national table tennis squad. Chitale’s petition asked for a stay on the selection and her induction in the team as per present selection criteria which were allegedly bypassed by the selection committee to include Kamath as Batra’s doubles partner. It also wanted the court to revoke the ratification of the team by the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

Also with Kamath not playing doubles at the Senior Nationals, Chitale through her petition has accused the CoA of “lack of transparency” and allowing a case of ‘Conflict of Interest”.

“…the Respondent No. 1’s selection of Ms. Archana Kamath also suffers from unfairness and lack of transparency. This is because of the conflict of interest on the part of one of the members of the Selection Committee for Juniors i.e., Mr. Bona Thomas John is the personal coach of Ms. Archana Kamath and thus is capable of unfairly prejudicing the Selection Committee’s choices in favour of Ms. Kamath,” the petition stated.

It has also been reported that Swastika and Ayhika have written a letter to the court-appointed CoA for not sticking to the selection criteria.

Manush, from the men’s team, has alleged a similar oversight in the selection.

“Dear Sir @PMOIndia @ianuragthakur I am Manush Shah TT player from Gujarat, India Rank 4, Despite of being in Top 3 according to the point system of selection criteria I have not been selected for CWG 2022. Please help me. @sanghaviharsh @AmitShah,” he tweeted.

What is CoA’s reaction?

The CoA has already declared the current selection criteria as flawed and laid down a new policy that will give 40 per cent weightage to each international and domestic performance with 20 per cent for the selectors. However, the new policy will only be effective from October.

After the team selection, Mudgil, CoA representative and chairperson of the selection committee had said: “Under the existing selection criteria, one of the members (Archana) falls outside the top four. The selection committee is convinced that the existing guidelines are “flawed” and has moved to make necessary course-correction, with new guidelines effective from October 1.”

“However, in this transitionary phase, with an eye on a rich medal haul in Birmingham, we have included the said player in the team. She (Archana Kamath) is one half of the doubles pair (Manika the other) that is ranked No. 4 in the world and which will be the top seeds at the Commonwealth Games.”

With agencies inputs

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