PSPB favourites at Inter-Institutional TT

All top paddlers of the country, barring Sharath Kamal, will be seen in action in the LIC-sponsored 43rd Inter-Institutional Table Tennis Championships beginning at the District Youth Service Indoor Hall here from Thursday.

With the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) getting the pride of place in all the four categories - men, women, youth boys and youth girls - based on their last edition's performances, there may not be any change in the pecking order.

When PSPB have players of the calibre of Soumyajit Ghosh, Soumyadeep Roy, Anthony Amalraj and Sanil Shetty in men's category and K. Shamini, Poulomi Ghatak, Ankita Das and Madhurika Patkar in the women's section, things become all the more easy.

This also means the next best teams, including the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) and the Airports Authority, will have to put up much bigger fights to dethrone their rivals.

The job is easier said than done, but they have the players in their ranks who can give the best in business some torrid moments on a given day. In fact, this is the kind of feelings that are setting the two outfits apart from other institutional teams here.

All the teams have been divided in to six and four groups respectively with two teams from each group qualifying into the second stage. The season opener is also important for all those participating as only the top two teams from men and women categories make it to the Senior Inter-State National Championships to be held in Bihar next January.

Similarly, the gold medal winners from the youth boys and youth girls will qualify for the Junior Inter-State and National Championships to be held at Guwahati in December this year. The youth events here will be played on a round-robin format with top teams winning the gold.

The championships carries total prize of Rs. 3.32 lakh, with top eight paddlers sharing the spoils.