Indian squash gets a new taste

We are not that far away’’: That’s Indian squash in a nut-shell, according to Ritwik Bhattacharya. After finishing runners-up...

We are not that far away’’: That’s Indian squash in a nut-shell, according to Ritwik Bhattacharya. After finishing runners-up — along with Sourav Ghosal — in the World Doubles Championship recently, Ritwik is quite positive about the fate of the game in the country.

Despite the achievement — which Ritwik describes as ‘nothing phenomenal’ — he believes that India is at least five years away from turning up such results more frequent. Ritwik though is a bit cautious, ‘‘for that to happen, the junior setup should improve.’’

But he is optimistic, especially with the changes that have come in recently. ‘‘Five years back there were just a handful of juniors, no qualified coaches and the really ambitious ones were forced to go abroad for training,’’ he says.

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Pointing out Egypt as an example, Ritwik says that they have over 100 ‘playing’ players under-11. ‘‘How many does India have,’’ he questions and answers himself, ‘‘not many.’’

Another flaw with the Indian system is their lack of planning. To press his point he explains how the Aussie pair that beat them in the finals were already preparing for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. As for us, ‘‘we are still talking about getting noticed.’’

Is sponsorship a problem? Ritwik doesn’t give the usual answer about cricket eating up all the sponsorship but says, ‘‘performances attract sponsors’’. ‘‘We have to first give results and things will change,’’ he says optimistically.

THE RECENT HIGHS

		• The past few years has seen squash hitting the headlines. The rundown on good news: • Joshna Chinappa winning the girls U-17 British Open in 2003 • Two golds and a silver in the Asian Championship • A career-high rank of 65 for Ritwik and back-to-back PSAA titles