Nobel Laureate Banerjee Hopes RCT Will Benefit Sportspersons

Kolkata, Jan 27 (PTI) Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Monday said he's hopeful his acclaimed Randomised Control Trail experiment could help the sportspersons to perform at their best.

Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer last year won the prestigious economics Nobel for their work on RCT, an experiment to test effectiveness by treating two groups differently, something widely used in medical industry.

Kremer first used RCT to study the impact free meals and books had on learning in Kenyan schools while Banerjee and his wife Duflo tried it in India, and wrote a book.

"We never managed to quite organise it but one day we hope to use RCT for sports. We will see whether it does make them better sportspersons, change their lives and able to make them more focused all those things," Banerjee said at a felicitation ceremony during the Calcutta South Club's centenary celebrations here.

Banerjee said his colleague Rukmini Banerjee, who is the CEO of NGO Pratham, had been strongly advocating the use of RCT in sports.

"She always wanted a RCT in India by taking a bunch of kids and give them a chance to do some rigourous sports activity and see how they perform and their focus level etc."

Banerjee, who was made life member at the Calcutta South Club, admitted he is an avid sports fan, especially of tennis and table tennis.

"Tennis is the ultimate challenge to me. It's little bit difficult for me, something that I hugely enjoy," Banerjee said, recalling watching a match involving Vijay Amritraj in 1974-75 at the Calcutta South Club.

"I play tennis twice a week at least, and sometimes more. I'm often the least talented on court but most enthusiastic. Please don't come to watch me on courts," he said.

"But I watch tennis a lot. My brother and I are real tennis addicts and talk a lot about the sport."

Asked about his favourite tennis players from the current lot, he said: "Obviously who does not watch Federer, Nadal or Djokovic."

Among the younger lot, he said he will put his money on Russian Karen Khachanov.

"He is excellent, lost a five-setter (to Nick Kyrgios) in the Australian Open third round. But he's someone who will come up one day," he said.

Banerjee said he also plays table tennis to keep his mind uncluttered.

"I get bored with myself very quickly. We donated a ping-pong table to the Economics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I play ping-pong with all the students a few times a week. It's something to keep me from getting bored."

Also a football fan, Banerjee recollected watching the epic 1975 derby, a 5-0 win by East Bengal in the IFA Shield final.

"I have seen many of the matches but I cannot especially forget the 0-5 demotion of Mohun Bagan. I remember the match, I was there at the stadium," he concluded.

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