The Commonwealth Games scheduled to be held in Birmingham is one of the major sporting events of this year. All the participating countries have started to assemble their best squads who will fly out to the United Kingdom next month. Amidst all the preparations the Indian table tennis squad finds itself in a lot of turmoil. The cracks of unfair selection have further opened up as the Committee of Administrators informed the players that they are yet to lock in the final squad for the upcoming CWG games. In addition to the chaos, reports have surfaced that a paddler has challenged his omission in the Delhi High Court.
Earlier, the CoA had announced an eight-member squad in Bangalore with the women's team seeking approval from the Sports Authority of India. The Committee had named Diya Chitale as a standby and as a result, she has now filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court challenging her exclusion. Taking the same path as Chitale, paddler Manush Shah, who was named as a reserve in the men's team, has done the same. Opening up on the matter, Manush's father Utpah Shah said "We filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court today. The hearing is on June 10 alongside Chitale's matter".
Weighing into the issue, SAI has put out a tweet that reads "The government or SAI will not have direct involvement in the selection process except to ensure it is fair and transparent". Team selection in major international events is the responsibility of the national sports federation". The Sports Ministry-backed body was forced to clear its stand after CoA informed the players that they haven't been able to finalize the men's and women's squad for the event in July-August. The email which CoA rolled out to the players on June 2, 2022, ignited all the fire and has attracted a lot of eyeballs towards this issue.
It is now being said that the selection committee had picked Manika Batra, Archana, Sreeja Akula, and Reeth Rishya in the team with Chitale as the standby. On the other hand, the men's team includes veteran Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan, Harmeet Desai, and Sanil Shetty with Manush as a reserve.
(Inputs from PTI)
