Maybe, we need more Manika Batras than Sharath Kamals, says Sharath Kamal

Sharath Kamal might have been the flagbearer of Indian table tennis for a good part of two decades, but he has no qualms in admitting that the flag has seemingly switched hands.

Young Manika Batra's astounding 2018 Commonwealth Games (CWG) success story not only gave Indian table tennis a new star but a number of eyeballs that took the sport to a never-seen-before high in the country.

"In 2004, I had said we need superstars to promote table tennis in India," Sharath says. "I had also said that I hope I was the one. But, Manika is bigger than me, I would guess, because I couldn't make the sport as famous as she has been able to. So, maybe we need more Manika Batras than Sharath Kamals," he adds with a chuckle.

Except that India still does need Sharath Kamal.

None more so than at the 2018 Asian Games, where he will not only hunt for an elusive individual Asiad medal but also lead the Indian team's charge for a maiden medal in the mega event.

The 36-year-old veteran from Chennai has seen the ebbs and flows of table tennis in India, from a time when only a handful of passionate followers would be able to identify India's top player to now when Manika has 18.8K followers just on Twitter.

The transformation was engineered during 10 days of superlative table tennis in the Gold Coast CWG, where the entire Indian contingent prized out three gold, two silver and two bronze medals, the highest by any country.

Sharath himself won three medals – a gold, a silver and a bronze in team, men's doubles and singles, respectively – in this CWG, yet it was the 22-year-old Manika who stole the show with four medals, two of them being yellow in colour.

In a country where stars are born overnight, Manika shot to fame, and with it gave Indian table tennis a big shot in the arm.

"All thanks to Manika Batra," Sharath says. "I did it when I was 24, but nobody gave a damn," he adds with another chuckle.

Damn right.

Sharath won two gold medals in the 2006 Melbourne CWG as a 24-year-old supremely-talented youngster, becoming India's first individual gold medal-winning paddler at the CWG.

And yet, it's at 36 that the man is getting his due. "I'm not saying I should've gotten the kind of attention and adulation that Manika is getting now. Not at all.

"It's just different times. It's the social media era now. Back then, there was no social media, it was just what the press wrote.

"I'm happy that the sport is getting the spotlight now. Because of Manika, the sport is getting more popular, and because of table tennis getting more popular, people are starting to recognise me now.

"When I go to a restaurant now, people walk up to me and say, 'oh, you're Sharath Kamal, right'?"

Collective, personal changes

The rise in popularity is, in many ways, a reward for all the sweat and sacrifice Kamal has made over the years, not just for himself but for the sport to reach the level it is in India right now.

Ever since the Indian contingent's disappointing show in the 2016 Rio Olympics, efforts have been made to set the table tennis house in order, both individually and collectively.

"There have been a lot of factors to the rise," Kamal says.

"First thing is thanks to TTFI (Table Tennis Federation of India) and SAI (Sports Authority of India), we've had good funding since the 2016 Games. From thereon, steadily there has been an increase in the number of players inside the top-100 and top-50 in the world," he says.

Once that was done, modifications were called for at a personal level. Kamal duly did that.

"I had an injury in 2015. That injury made me understand the importance of fitness. So, I'm way fitter now," he says.

He also shifted base from Germany to back in India, realising that playing only the league there was stagnating him as a player, and staying away from home frustrating him as a person.

"I moved back from Germany, and I was more at home. Earlier, I used to be in Bundesliga, playing matches week after week. There was constant pressure all the time. Now, I've moved back home, and that gives me peace of mind. I was away from home for 14 years, and that is hard," he says.

Bearing fruit of hard work

The alterations began to bear fruit, not just in the CWG but also in the World Team Table Tennis Championships in May, where the men's team led by Kamal finished a creditable 13th, an outing that secured India's spot in the Championship Division in the next edition in 2020.

"I made the maximum number of points among all players in that tournament," he says. "I played more matches, and I won most of the matches. I personally would say that that was my career best performance."

It shows in his rankings, with Kamal reclaiming his position as India's top-ranked table tennis player, jumping to world No. 33, one spot below his best-ever world ranking achieved in May 2015.

Continuous success key 

Kamal believes it was imperative that things did not go quiet after the noise the Indian paddlers made at the CWG in terms of performances, both personally as well as for the sport.

"The World Championships show was very, very important. The men's team played at its level at the CWG, but at the World Championships, we played beyond our level. At least myself.

"I think for TT by and large, the continuous performance is key. The sport needs to be in the news constantly for it to get its due," he adds.

And that's exactly why a medal at the Asian Games is critical, though it will be a different ball game compared to the CWG.

India have never progressed beyond the quarterfinals of Asian Games in table tennis, thanks to the sterner competition from traditional powerhouses like China.

The luck of draw will be important this time, though there's a sense of self-belief within Kamal's gang of boys.

"If somebody has to have confidence, it is the Indian men's team. We've been doing very well lately, and we're all high on confidence. We should reach the quarterfinals, and then, if we don't have China, we will have a pretty good chance. Against most other teams, we are close. We're not too big an underdog. There's not so much of a difference that they can take us for granted," he says.

As for him personally, Sharath is hoping for his biggest addition to the multiple 'firsts' list by winning a maiden Asiad medal in singles.

"I wouldn't say I'm desperate, but I would be really happy. If I win a medal, it would be the biggest one for me. Even a guy like me who has created so many firsts for Indian table tennis," he says.

'Need to realise that TT is not a garage sport anymore'

Sharath Kamal said the current interest in table tennis needs to be sustained by building a system where everyone contributes towards the continued growth of the sport. "We need to build a system now. The system is slowly being built. But the results are coming too quick for the system to contain it. So, I think the federation, coaches and the players must all contribute to help build a coherent system. Now that the players have come to playing at a certain level, the coaches also have to grow with the players. And so does the federation. We all need to realise that we're not a garage sport anymore, we are an important now. So, a system has to be built where everyone is helping each other, and the knowledge is passed on. That is very important," he says.

India's TT squad for Asiad

Men: Sharath Kamal, G Sathiyan, Anthony Amalraj, Manav Thakkar, Harmeet Desai
Women: Manika Batra, Mouma Das, Madhurika Patkar, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ayhika Mukherjee

Current world ranking of Sharath Kamal, upstaging teammate G Sathiyan to become the highest-ranked Indian table tennis player. Sharath's best-ever world ranking was world No. 32, achieved in May 2015

FLASHBACK 2014

Table Tennis

None of the Indian paddlers advanced beyond Round 3 in Incheon, with Soumyajit Ghosh and Manika Batra going the farthest, both losing their third-round matches. Sharath Kamal lost in the second round in singles, also crashing out of doubles at the same stage with Anthony Amalraj