The average Indian sports fan is finally waking up to the fact that there are sports other than cricket. PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik, Dipa Karmakar and the rest of the Indian Olympic contingent played their hearts out at Rio 2016 and won plenty of admirers, and now the Indian junior TT team has given us another reason to hold our heads up in pride.
In the recently held Asian School Table Tennis championships at Singapore, the team of six Indian paddlers overcame quality opposition to secure third position and win the bronze medal. The team was represented by Angad Singh Chabbra (Delhi), Pankaj Sidana (Chandigarh), Manush Shah (Gujarat), Shreyas Kulkarni (Karnataka), Karan Gollerkeri (Karnataka) and Rakshith Barigidad (Karnataka).
In the group stage, they were drawn with traditional heavyweights Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand. Two teams would qualify from the group and the Indian paddlers got off to a smashing start overcoming Hong Kong 3-1 and Macau 3-2. They lost to Thailand 3-1 in the final group match and qualified as the second placed team.
The loss to Thailand proved to be crucial as India had to face China in the semi-final. China, the TT superpower proved to be too good for our talented young boys and secured a 3-0 victory over the Indian team.
The team was led superbly by Rakshith Barigidad who played out of his skin and was undefeated until the semi-final. The rest of the paddlers Manush Shah, Shreyas Kulkarni, Karan Gollerkeri, Angad Singh and Pankaj also made crucial contributions right throughout the tournament.
China secured the gold medal, Singapore won the silver, while India and Thailand shared the bronze medal. Indian sport is definitely entering a new era, and this result shows that the future is indeed very bright.
