Paris 2024, Table Tennis: Sharath Kamal, Manika Batra to spearhead India in Olympic team debut

Sharath, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar will form the three-member men’s team, while Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula and Archana Kamath will be the squad members in the women’s category.

FILE PHOTO: Sharath Kamal Achanta in action. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Commonwealth Games medallist A. Sharath Kamal and world No. 24 Manika Batra will spearhead the Indian men’s and women’s team events respectively, at the Paris Olympics in what will be the first-ever participation of Indian squads at the Games.

The senior selection committee of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), which met in New Delhi on Thursday, picked a six-member squad (three in each section) as per the Olympics norms, besides naming the individuals who would compete in the singles events, according to a release from TTFI.

Sharath, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar will form the three-member men’s team, while Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula and Archana Kamath will be the squad members in the women’s category.

The “Alternate player” or the fourth player in each section would be G. Sathiyan and Ayhika Mukherjee.

In the men’s singles, Sharath and Harmeet will compete and it will be Manika and Sreeja in the women’s event.

Since the selection of the squads and the individuals were as per the already pronounced TTFI criteria, three players “got selected themselves” because of their consistent performances over time and world rankings.

Indian paddler Manika Batra in action. | Photo Credit: PTI

However, there was a debate over the third player for the women’s squad. After Manika and Sreeja Akula were picked on the back of their higher world rankings (world’s top 50), Archana Kamath made it to the team as the third player. The Bengaluru paddler edged Ayhika Mukherjee out as the former scored over the latter on several counts, including her world ranking (No.103), 33 places ahead of Ayhika.

It was unfortunate that Ayhika despite a wonderful performance in the World team championships in Busan in February where she upset World No. 1 Sun Yingsha of China couldn’t find a place in the team as the third member.

As for the men, Sharath picked himself as the top-ranked Indian at No. 40, while Harmeet (No. 63) and Manav (No. 62) were separated by one slot in world rankings.

Though both made it to the team composition, National champion Harmeet got the selectors’ nod based on his international (better win-loss proportion to his participation) and national performances.

Incidentally, Massimo Costantini’s presence as a special invitee at the meeting also added teeth as the foreign expert’s inputs proved handy in the selection of the squads.

The teams:

Men: A. Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, and Manav Thakkar. Alternate Player: G. Sathiyan.

Women: Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, and Archana Kamath. Alternate Player: Ayhika Mukherjee.