Shillong, June 16: The domination of Indian paddlers in regional events, whether in the senior section or junior, has something that all the neighbours had always envied about. The authority they have shown over the years has taken them to places, including the Olympics, Games after Games. That both Soumyajit Ghosh and Ankita Das, who have qualified for the London Games, have come though such junior programmes is an open secret.

One such event is the SAF Table Tennis Championships which get underway here at the Jawaharlal Nehru Sports Complex from tomorrow. The championships offer two tickets to the Asian Junior Championships to be held at Jiangyin (China) in July and that is what the players from six nations will be playing for as only the top two teams will make grade.

India have pitted strong teams in both the boys and girls sections and it goes without saying that the hosts are the overwhelming favourites at the championships. The new crop of talented juniors will be shouldering the prospect of helping the country extend its supremacy in the event, the first of its kind being held at the scenic Meghalaya capital.

Events will be held in Junior and Cadet sections followed by the individual events. The city is all decked up for the first international meet with government extending its full support, giving boost to the entire north-eastern region.

The Indian junior boys’ team will have the top paddlers like Sudhanshu Grover, Abhishek Yadav and Vivek Bhargava. Both Abhishek and Sudhanshu are from the PSPB Academy in Ajmer and have done quite well in junior circuit tournaments. As for the girls, T. Reeth Rishya and Mallika Bhandarkar are experienced enough to put it across their rivals.

What is unique about the event here is the participation of Pakistani team. This will be the first time a Pakistani team is participating in any discipline hosted in India after a long time. The other teams that will fill up the slots in the three-day championships are Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Maldives have pulled out at the last minute owing to some problems.

The Indian squad:

Boys: Junior - Sudhanshu Grover, Abhishek Yadav, Vivek Bhargava, R. Anandhraj. Cadet - Birdie Boro, Utkarsh Gupta, Lalrinpuia.

Girls’: Junior - T. Reeth Rishya, Mallika Bhandarkar, Narasimha Priya, Senhora D’Souza. Cadet - Karnam Spoorthy, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ayihika Mukherjee.

Coaches - V. Seshadri & Sandeep Gupta.