Table Tennis: Chitale moves HC for being 'unfairly' left out of CWG team

There seems to be no end to the controversies in Indian table tennis. In the latest row, the Commonwealth Games team selected by the court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) landed in trouble with Diya Chitale, India No.3 player, moving Delhi High Court for being 'unfairly' left out of the four-member team.

The women's team announced by the CoA comprises Manika Batra, Sreeja Akula, Reeth Rishya and Archana Kamath. Chitale was named as standby. While naming the team on Tuesday, CoA member and head of selection committee SD Mudgil admitted that Kamath was slightly outside the 'existing criteria' but was picked as a medal prospect with Batra in doubles. He said the existing selection policy had 'flaws.'

The three-member COA, led by justice (retd) Gita Mittal with senior advocate Chetan Mittal and Mudgil as members was appointed by Delhi High Court in February, after suspending the executive body of the TTFI. The federation faced the consequences of a petition filed by Batra who alleged that she was asked to fix a match during Tokyo Olympics qualification by the then national coach.

The CoA, in April, initiated a process to adopt a new selection policy, pointing out several inconsistencies in selection in the past when 'meritorious' players were left out. The proposed selection criteria were objected to by several state associations, players and coaches. The new ranking and selection criteria was approved on May 12 and was to come into effect from October 1.

As per the existing policy, the weightage of domestic ranking was 50%, world ranking 30% and 20% was left for discretion of the selection committee. It meant that India No.1 gets 50 points, and a reduction of five points for every rank with the 10th placed getting five points. In terms of world ranking, the highest ranked Indian gets 30 points, and subsequent reduction of three points for next ranked Indian until the world ranking of 200.

“This system disproportionately favours performance at the domestic level and does not adequately recognize international performances. The number of prestigious international tournaments has increased in leaps and bounds, since the above criterion was framed," said the COA.

Giving more weightage to international performances, COA's new selection policy reset the weightage to 40% each for domestic and international performances and left 20% for selectors’ discretion. It meant 40 points for world ranking (1-30), 35pts for ranking (31-50), 30pts for (51-70) with a player in (141-150) bracket getting 5 points. For domestic rankings, the top ranked Indian was to be awarded 40 points and subsequent drop of four points for next-ranked players. The India No. 10 player gets four points.

CWG champion Batra is world ranked 39, Kamath 66, Sreeja 69, Reth 100 and Diya 129. As per doubles world rankings, Batra and Kamath are ranked No. 4. They, however, did not compete at the senior national championships.

The new selection policy set criteria for doubles, which was not existent earlier, and pairings were made after selection of players. CoA said doubles should be included in the ranking events as these are medal events in international meets,” as per the CoA policy.

However, the new policy would have come into play only from October.

Diya, in her plea, said the change in selection committee as well as introduction of the new criteria at the end of the season, less than a month before finalization of the team in CWG is ‘extremely unfair and arbitrary.’

Kamath, she has argued, was not eligible because her scores under the existing criteria (47) as well as the new selection criteria (50) are lower than required to be amongst the top 4 players.

In her plea she also said Kamath did not compete in doubles at the national championships -- though she competed in singles – and was not eligible for selection.

The court heard her plea on Friday and has put June 13 as the next date of hearing.

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