As expected, National champions Sharath Kamal and K. Shamini head the Indian men and women teams in the 19th Asian table tennis championship to be played at Lucknow from November 16 to 22.
By virtue of being the host, India has been allowed to enter two extra players in the singles events besides the five named in the team championship in each section. These berths have been filed by youngsters Devesh Karia and Aman Balgu in the men’s singles and Mamta Prabhu and Madhurika Patkar in the women’s singles.
Zubin Kumar, the reigning National inter-institutional champion, makes it to the team. Anirban Nandy, owing to his consistency in the ranking tournaments, also joins Sharath, Sourav Chakraborty and Soumyadeep Roy.
Subhajit Saha, who is nursing a shin-injury, was not available for selection.Similarly, Commonwealth Youth Games winner G. Sathiyan made himself unavailable for selection to prepare for his Class XII exams this academic session.
Among the ladies, in-form youngsters Pooja Sahasrabhudhe and Divya Deshpande have joined Shamini and the vastly experienced duo of Mouma Das and Poulomi Ghatak.
In the last edition of the championship in 2007, the Indian men finished eighth and the ladies team was 10th.
The squad :
Men: A. Sharath Kamal, Sourav Chakraborty, Soumyadeep Roy, Jubin Kumar and Anirban Nandy.
Women: K. Shamini, Pooja Sahasrabhudhe, Divya Deshpande, Mouma Das and Poulomi Ghatak.
Coaches: Messrs Massimo Constantini, Bhawani Mukherjee and Vijay Sarathi. Manager: K. Karunakaran.
