Sharath Kamal to play Table Tennis nationals

Achanta Sharath Kamal will make, in two years, his maiden appearance at the 77th National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships, beginning at the Kotla Vijay Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium on Tuesday.

It’s good news for his colleagues in Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB). Sharath last played the nationals at Patna. He had even skipped the Inter-Institutional championships because of his commitments abroad. Then injury prevented him from competing in major international events, including the Commonwealth Championships at Surat last month.

Sharath is a value addition to the men’s team title holders that already have with them national champion Soumyajit Ghosh, Anthony Amalraj, Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan. However hard they try, none of the 31 teams in fray can snatch from the PSPB’s grip the Barna Ballack Cup which has been theirs for several years in a row.

Even their women are likely to keep a tight hold on the Jayalakshmi Cup, which they lost momentarily at Raipur a few years ago before regaining it. With Manika Batra, Mouma Das, Ankita Das, K Shamini and Pooja Sahasrabudhe, it will be difficult for others to close in. Yet, this edition can ring in changes. West Bengal have a nice mix of youth in Anirban Ghosh, Arjun Ghosh and Rohnit Bhanja. So do Railways – a highly-talented Ravindra Kotiyan, Anirban Nandi and Souvik Kar, and Tamil Nadu – bolstered by the return of R. Abhishek, and having Sushmit Sriram, Nikhil Suresh and Anandh Raj Rajan. Even Rajasthan, winners of Youth team title this season, have Abhishek Yadav, Sudhanshur Grover, Pankaj Vishwakarma and Vivek Bhargava.