Table Tennis Commonwealth Games selection creates stir
The Sri Lanka table tennis team, scheduled to take wings to Birmingham, England later this month for the Commonwealth Games 2022, may have already cleared the doubts of predicting what the outcome could potentially be with their performances at a recent top domestic competition.All four paddlers selected for the CWG 2022, interestingly, were defeated comprehensively at last week’s National Table Tennis Championship, apparently by those who deservingly should have been in the touring party. All four paddlers slotted to represent the country in Birmingham, have competed in one of the main events, the Men’s Singles, but none of them have been able to qualify for the finals.
Interestingly, Supuna Warusawithana, the highly rated paddler, who earned the original void created by the already qualified player to withdraw due to personal reasons, could not even reach the pre-quarter-final, or the final 16 of the Men’s Singles.
The only paddler to show some promise among the four selected CWG-bound players was Chameera Ginige. He reached the semi-final of the Men’s Singles, and successfully earned the championship of the Mixed Doubles partnering with the former Women’s Singles champion, Ishara Madurangi.
Even Krishan Wickramaratne, who was the top performer at the CWG trials, and Milinda Lakshitha, the most senior among the selected foursome, had to bow out of the Men’s Singles after being defeated by paddlers much junior to them, at the national event held last week for the year of 2021. The eventual winner of the Men’s Singles, Nimesh Ranchagoda, however is not part of the CWG table tennis team, as he failed to impress at the final trials.
Senura Silva, who won the national Men’s Singles title in 2020, was another paddler who lost the opportunity to travel to Birmingham, as he was informed of the CWG trials by the local table tennis authorities. At the time of the trials Silva was writing his G.C.E. O/L examination and his parents, former national players and national champions Indika Prasad and Deepika Rodrigo had appealed of the misfortune their son had to experience due to unprofessionalism of the sport’s administration. Yet after the authorities failed to provide a reasonable explanation, Silva has now flown to the USA to attend a residential training programme with personal funding.
Experts of the sport state that most of the fraternity are not surprised by the continuing act by the local table tennis authorities, who they claim as acting in favour of a selected lot, when it comes to top multi-sport events such as the CWG, which is only second to the Olympics for a country like Sri Lanka. They further compare this year’s attempt by the table tennis administration for the CWG an insane attempt, as Sri Lanka is represented by an average set of paddlers instead of a full force.