New Delhi, July 31: Achanta Sharath Kamal has cleverly preferred singles in the LPS Bossard 47th All India Inter-Institutional Championships, starting at the Table Tennis Foundation tomorrow, giving a skip to the team event.  The top-ranked Indian in the world at No. 43, who turned 35 early this month, knew what suits him best at this stage and how long and well he can contribute to Indian table tennis.  

Yet his absence in the team championships will, in no way, stop the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) juggernaut from adding the 16th title this year. In fact, his absence should serve as an opportunity to G. Sathiyan, Soumyajit Ghosh, Anthony Amalraj, Harmeet Desai and Subhajit Saha to keep the team flag flying high. Even otherwise, there is hardly a team that looks like derailing PSPB’s plans despite the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB), who failed to qualify for the final last season and thus losing the opportunity in many years to compete in the senior nationals at Manesar (Haryana), strategizing differently this time.

Railways, instead of the usual mixed camp, had one camp for the women at Kolkata and another for their men at Bengaluru, plotting to secure a better position, if not try and upset the PSPB applecart. However, runners-up Airports Authority of India (AAI), with Sushmit Sriram, Sarthak Gandhi, Arjun Ghosh, Anirban Ghosh and Abhinav Belwal, look more compact and could be the team to pose questions to the superiority of PSPB.

In effect, it will be a contest between PSPB and AAI in the men while the rest of team in fray will merely look ahead to improve their last year’s positions. This means the focus, after the three-day team championships, will shift to the singles showdown where PSPB paddlers like Sathiyan, Ghosh, Harmeet and Amalraj with Sharath in fray, will be fiercely competing.

As for the women’s fare, PSPB will be spearheaded by reigning national champion Madhurika Patkar, Manika Batra, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe, young Archana Kamath and veteran and former national champion Poulami Ghatak. They are obviously the best available from the PSPB pool and will aim to add their 14th silverware in team championships. But one cannot rule out the vulnerability in crunch situations as one witnessed during the Manesar senior nationals despite their opponents, including AAI, not posing any real threat on paper at least.

With 19 teams competing in men section, they have been divided into six groups of three each and four while the 13 teams in women’s category are bunched in four, led by PSPB in group A which has three teams.

In Youth team events, where only three and four teams each figure in Boys and Girls, respectively, the contest for title seems to be between PSPB and AAI in boys while in girls category, it could be between PSPB and RBI with AAI a third distant possibility. Both the boys and girls team championships will be a round-robin affair.

If Archana, who was part of AAI last year, has shifted the scales in favour of PSPB, RBI has the liks of Sreeja Akula, Ayhika Mukherjee and Harshavardhini and Priyadarshini Das. Similarly, PSPB have Manav Thakkar leading the charge with Ronit Bhanja, Birdie Boro and Utkarsh Gupta while AAI will look up to Anirban Ghosh, chopper Lalrin Puia, Snehit Suravajjala and Manush Shah, the last two named finishing among medals at the Jordan Junior and Cadet Open at Amman.

The doubles events—two teams in men and women and four in mixed allowed—may not be as glamourous but they do offer reasonable prize money in each category to motivate all top pairs to compete. The total prize purse of the championships will be Rs. 4.25 lakh.

“We will be using both STAG and DHS balls for the team events and singles, respectively, while Stag flooring and tables will be used during the championships,” said competition manager Ganeshan Neelakanta Iyer. A.S. Kler will be the chief referee and he will be assisted by deputy referees Sridhar Srinivasan, Arundati Brahmachari and N.K. Lahiry along with 30 technical officials, including Blue Badge, International and national umpires, from all around the country.

The opening day matches are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. with the men team events.