Vadodara, January 5: Can history repeat itself? This must be the question heavily weighing on the minds of Rajasthan which, for the first time, won a national title when their Youth Boys toppled a strong Maharashtra 3-2 in a heavyweight bout that lasted one and a half hours at Dharamsala last November. The question will resurface when the team events of the 11Even Sports 78th Junior and Youth National Championships get underway at the SAMA Indoor Complex here from tomorrow.

But the answer to this question will be a simple no because Rajasthan’s team at Dharamsala had the likes of Abhisehk Yadav, Sudhanshu Grover, Pankaj Vishwakarma and Vivek Bhargava and none of them is relevant today as they have either moved on to institutions like the PSPB or the Railways or graduated to the next level. This leaves title-holders Rajasthan with the only chance of surviving the group stages.

Maharashtra, on the other hand, can make a match of it this time provided they ward off challenges from last year’s semifinalists Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and other quarterfinalists like PSPB, West Bengal, Maharashtra B and Delhi, which has a strong team this year with game changers Payas Jain and Yashansh Malik the in their ranks.

However, an interesting battle is likely between North Bengal, the reigning Youth Girls champions, and West Bengal, who ended as runners-up last year. The West Bengal squad has a new look with Prapti Sen joining Kaushani Nath and Moumita Datta to take on the mantle. Yet North Bengal has the wherewithal to put up a good fight and retain the trophy if Sagarika Mukherjee and Anushka Dutta can turned it around. Then there are teams like Telangana and Tamil Nadu—the last named has a strong, experienced squad, along with the Airports Authority of India, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. On their day, any of these teams that entered the quarterfinals in the last edition are capable of toppling each other because of some star presence in their teams.  

Similarly, the fare in Junior Boys, too, will be equally enthralling as West Bengal and PSPB Academy boys, who finished 1-2 in that order at Dharamsala, are expected to maintain their supremacy. But one cannot rule out the abilities of paddlers from Tamil Nadu or Delhi, the two semifinalists, along with Karantaka, Telangana, North Bengal and Gujarat, who were quarterfinalists.

As for Junior Girls, Maharashtra looks to be the team to beat though they finished runners-up behind Telangana in the last edition. Since then, much has happened with Maharashtra girls showing more maturity in winning individual titles during the zonal events as compared to Telangana’s. But, in recent times, other teams have also gained in strength and it makes the list of title contenders long and sturdy. Hence, any prediction at this stage is fraught with dangers because one always runs the risk of going wrong on the forecast.  

Both the West Bengal and Telangana had really done well, having maintained the tempo they gained in the previous season at Rajahmundry, to be consecutive title winners in the Junior Boys and Girls sections. Hosts Gujarat, with some new crop of paddlers in their ranks, would rely on them to deliver the goods.

All these will happen in the first three days of the championships from competitors of 32 teams and institutions in Junior and Youth Boys sections and 29 teams in Junior and Youth Girls categories, divided into eight groups. However, from Day 4 it will be another kind of battle among the players for individual superiority. They will not only be eyeing the prize money on offer during the singles events but also the ranking points which are vital to take them to the next big stage of getting selected to Team India. With selectors and foreign coach Massimo Costantini in place during the six-day meet, the players have everything to gain.