15 year old Swastika Ghosh has achieved a lot for the State of Maharashtra at the national level and also for her country India at the international level TT tournaments. However, this young talented girl from Kharghar, Navi Mumbai has been ignored by the organizers of the forthcoming Ultimate Table Tennis ( UTT) league in India.
Swastika Ghosh
Swastika’s father Sandeep Ghosh, who is also her Coach and mentor in this game, is very upset, after knowing that his daughter was not included in the Ultimate Table Tennis(UTT) league – the big event to be held in June 2018. Swastika first received All India Rank-1 in the under-12 table tennis category, after winning the National Ranking Central Zone Table Tennis Championship in Gandhidham, Gujarat in 2013 . And thereafter she has not looked back. Every year she has shown tremendous progress in her game at the state, national and international level.
Swastika with her father & Coach Sandeep Ghosh
It may be recalled that talented Swastika sacrificed her chance of winning more medals in the sub Junior Girls event , after winning the Sub Jr. Girls National Championship. She opted for higher age group Girls Singles event, so as to face tougher competition at state and national level. For the past 2 years, Swastika has been a regular member of Team India in International tournaments. Swastika represented the country in ITTF Belgium, Portugal and Spanish open and was also the captain of Indian Sub Junior Team for South Asian Federation Games at Karachi, Pakistan.
Swastika with Virat Kohli & Anushka Sharma after receiving VKF Scholarship
Being her right to fight for justice in our democratic country, Swastika had served a notice through her lawyer on 9th April 2018 to the Organisers and sponsors of UTT event , seeking explanation, as to why she has not been considered for this TT league, in spite of her best performance at the national and international level( India rank 7th in Youth Girls ) . Instead, a below ranked candidate, Sreeja Akula (10th rank in the Country in Youth Girls) and five years older to her, was found suitable for selection by the organizers, for this league. This was obviously surprising. But, in their reply dt. 17th April 2018 sent through their lawyers, the organizers 11 Sports, have denied the allegations made by Swastika’s lawyer on behalf of his client.
As regards, preferring Sreeja Akula a lower ranked player from India, it has been pointed out by Organisers that Sreeja’s selection was made on the basis of her current World ranking. Further, they have also defended that being the organizers of this event, they were free to decide its own selection process, which in no manner is illegitimate, unlawful and/or unjust. In short, they have denied in toto the contents of notice served by Swatika’s lawyer and called it false and baseless . The reply from lawyer of 11 Sports also mentions that The Indian ranking of a player is secondary i.e. in the event 7 (seven) players of each category are not seeded in the top 100 in the world and/or such Indian players seeded in the top 100 refuse participation in UTT, the Indian rankings issued by TTFI are then taken into consideration and alternative players are invited to participate in UTT, accordingly. 11 Sports have also clarified that whilst UTT is approved and supported by TTFI, it is a privately-owned tournament and have the absolute and sole authority and discretion in deciding the criteria for inviting players to participate in UTT and is in no way liable to invite the top 7 (seven) players in any Indian category.
Swastika is at present in Chandigarh playing in the National level Table Tennis Championship for Youth. But, according to Swastika’s father Sandeep Ghosh , who spoke to magzmumbai, “Swastika has been deliberately ignored by the organizers from the forthcoming U.T.T. league. I am not satisfied with the explanation received from 11 Sports through their lawyer. According to me, any big tournament hosted in India with the support of Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), should respect their rankings first. Why only world ranking was brought in the case of my daughter’s omission in Youth category? Why not while selecting other Indian team members of league in other categories ? For your kind information, recently Swastika beat Sreeja Akula 4-0 games in Youths Singles in individual capacity in 2018-National Championship for Youth held at Durgapur. Further, she also defeated incredibly, the Olympian & 6-time Sr. National Champion Ms. Mouma Das in Women’s singles of the Sr. National table tennis championship held in Ranchi in 2018. Is this not a great performance? Mouma was member of the Indian Women’s team which won Gold in recently concluded Commonwealth games. Therefore, this injustice and imparity in selection has certainly spoiled talented Swastika’s hopeful career. Not all the players can afford to go and participate in World Ranking tournaments taking place in different foreign countries. And, therefore, counting the World ranking for selection of players in a competition held in India, is not justified. ” he emphasized .
Mr. Sandeep Ghosh certainly seemed to be very aggrieved , as he feels that the parent body of India i.e. TTFI should be respected, when any private organizer conducts such tournaments in India. “Why can’t the transparency maintained by TTFI in rankings and selections be applied to this tournament,? Last but not the least, Swastika’s selection among the seven budding sports persons from different sports in India by Virat Kohli Foundation last year, clearly speaks about her ability and achievements. She is the only Table Tennis player from India , who has been selected by this foundation. The other six young sportspersons belong to other sports. Is this not enough to highlight her achievements and ability? My daughter’s fight against injustice will go on and I am sure TTFI will never encourage such practices by any private organizers,” he concluded.
There is no doubt that 11 Sports are doing a commendable job of promoting the game of Table Tennis in India but they should be more transparent, when it comes to selecting players in tournaments organized by them .This will make all the probable players happy .