Hyderabad: Men’s defending champions, Petroleum Sports Promotion Board, were bolstered by the addition of India’s top paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal ahead of their campaign at the 77th Senior National and inter-state table tennis championships that gets underway at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
Sharath, who skipped the inter-institutional championships because of his commitments abroad, has decided to be part of the PSPB men’s team that have national champion Soumyajit Ghosh, Anthony Amalraj, Harmeet Desai and G. Sathiyan in their ranks.
PSPB’s women’s side comprising Manika Batra, Mouma Das, Ankita Das, K. Shamini and Pooja Sahasrabudhe will be a tough team to crack. Telangana’s men’s side will comprise Dr Y. Chandrachud, Saroj Siril, Ali Mohammed, Somnath Ghosh and Aravind.
The women’s team will have top players like Nikaht Banu, Monica Manohar, A. Sreeja, Naina Jaiswal and Varuni Jaiswal. Meanwhile, West Bengal have maintained a balance between youth and experience. Young paddlers such as Anirban Ghosh, Arjun Ghosh and Rohnit Bhanja will definitely add fire power to the West Bengal side.
Rajasthan, who have two PSPB players in Abhishek Yadav and Sudhanshur Grover, look set to give the defending champions a run for their money. The other two players in the Rajasthan side are Pankaj Vishwakarma and Vivek Bhargava.
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