Table Tennis
"Did not expect it to affect me so bad mentally," says paddler Manush Shah on CWG selection
Paddler Manush Shah said that his 2022 Commonwealth Games selection and the ongoing court case has taken a toll on him mentally and is affecting his performances.
Manush Shah, the India No. 2, has been kept as reserve on the Indian table tennis squad for the upcoming 2022 Commonwealth Games (Source: Flickr/WTT)
The Indian paddler Manush Shah said that his 2022 Commonwealth Games snub and the ongoing court case has taken a toll on him mentally and is affecting his performances.
Manush is one of the four paddlers who has moved to court this month questioning the CWG selection process by the Delhi High Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (COA). While one out of the four – Diya Chitale, has been included in the team following her petition in the court, Manush and others continue to await their fate.
"It definitely hurts. To be honest I was not expecting this and hence it has affected me even more mentally. Last week I had my first hearing and I was playing in Croatia on the same day. But the only thing going on in my mind was what would happen in the court and eventually, I crashed in qualification rounds itself in both singles and doubles," Manush tells The Bridge.
"I do not like to blame my performances on external factors, but this was a big distraction coming into the tournament. When it is such a big thing, it always plays on the back of your mind," he states.
The 21-year-old from Gujarat was named as a reserve player in the Indian table tennis contingent for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, despite being the second-ranked player as per the selection criteria. The players named in the main team include veterans Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran along with Sanil Shetty and Harmeet Desai.
"The only focus I have is on my position. I would not ever want any player to go out of the team or say this player does not deserve it. My entire point is the fact that as per the selection criteria of 50% national rankings and 30% world rankings, I am the second-best-ranked player after Achanta Sharath Kamal. Being second, I should not be out of the team," he stresses.
Manush states that the COA-appointed selection committee needs to be transparent when it comes to selecting or dropping any player and that currently, it is not any different from the pre-COA days.
"The expectations when COA came in were very simple. Transparency. Whoever is selected and whoever is not need to get a proper explanation on why it is the case. This was always an issue with TTFI and even with the COA, when we take the CWG is taken into consideration nothing has really changed."
