West Bengal Women Beat PSPB, Regain Team Title After Two Years

Cuttack, Jan 6 (PTI) West Bengal's women regained the team title after a two-year gap, beating holders Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) in the final of the 80th National Table Tennis Championship here Sunday.

The credit must go to West Bengal -- who last won the title at the Manesar Nationals in 2016 — and Mousumi Paul to give the kind of start to her team.

But equal recognition should be given to PSPB team think-tank, including coach M. Gharib, who rested an in-form Archana Kamath and preferred Mouma Das, who had very little to show this season in national ranking events with mere 35 points from three appearances.

In other words, in only one of those tournaments she had managed to reach the round of 32.

But more than anything else, the two singles losses that the CWG gold medal winner Manika Batra suffered, first at the hand of Mousumi Paul, a PSPB player loaned to West Bengal, and then Krittwika Sinha Roy, summed up the mood of the team which eventually lost 1-3.

Madhurika, who played the second singles, posted the only win for PSPB.

The expectant crowd at the stadium cheered for Manika Batra as she took the first point but Mousumi Paul, though from PSPB but turning out for West Bengal, seized the opportunity when Manika was forced into playing loose shots to take lead.

From there it became more of an uphill task for the CWG gold winner who committed far too many mistakes to make her opponent's life easy.

So much so, Mousumi not only took the next game but was on the verge of sealing it at 11-10, just needing a point for the tie when the West Bengal paddler took an unnecessary timeout.

A second opportunity also came when she was on her second match point at 13-12 which she squandered, helping the cause of Manika to give a breather as the PSPB girl won the game 15-13.

Drawing confidence from that win, Manika equalled the score and despite Mousumi taking a slender lead the former was in with a chance to put her side 1-0 up at 10-9. But, this time, Mousumi deuced and took the game on extended points.

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