Cornering Glory

Abhijit Das is one such name to reckon with. He has devoted all his precious time to bring glory to TT in Bengal. A Railway employee and joint-secretary of West Bengal Table Tennis Association (WBBTA),Abhijit started his career as a player in 1979 at the YMCA Club,Vivekananda Road. In 1981 he first played for Bengal and the next year he clinched the state championships crown. “When I started playing,there was no concept of coaches. Whatever I learnt,I learnt from my seniors at the YMCA.”

Abhijit’s passion for TT knows no bounds. From a promising player,he turned to coaching. “I wanted to remain in touch with TT even after I quit playing as a professional. Even now I practise three to four hours daily at a stretch.”

His journey as a coach began while he was residing at Uttarpara in 1994. He joined the Vivekananda Club,Hind Motor. Then in 2005 he started coaching at the YMCA and Bally Athletic Club. Under his guidance several top seeds have emerged who have played at the state,national as well at international levels. And some of them also stood out to be Bengal champions. Sanjib Barui,Swarbesh Agarwal of Bally Athletic Club are some of the top seeds whom he considers promising.

It has been five years that he has been the coach of Bengal as well as the South Eastern Railway team. “As a coach I always motivate the players and improvise on their technic,physique,practice and also food habits because for a table tennis player reflex and swiftness are the two weapons. Table Tennis,being the second fastest game in the world,has now become even faster because of the use of rubber like Innova and Chelona.”

Abhijit’s fame as a coach reached its peak when he was selected to coach the Junior (U-18) India team for the South Asian Championship at Karachi in 2008. That was his biggest achievement when his team won the gold medal in all the events. Despite the success at Karachi,he said that India is unable to perform in big arenas like Asian Championship because of their fitness,practice schedules and also for the difference in the bats. “Countries like China and Japan keep their practice techniques and schedules confined to them and the bats that are manufactured in their country are only used by them for playing and are not marketed to other countries.”

Abhijit has been actively involved with WBTTA since its inception in 2002. As a joint secretary of the federation he thinks that as an indoor game the craze for table tennis has increased a lot than what it was 20 years ago. But still he thinks that not many players are coming out of the periphery. “Our education system is such that one cannot concentrate equally on studies and games. A player needs at least four to five hours of practice everyday. But the problem is that under the circumstances he cannot fully dedicate himself to table tennis.”

In such a situation Abhijit is still making utmost efforts to promote table tennis and make this game a competitive one. He says,“The federation is planning a ‘State League’ in 2010 where top clubs of every district will vie for honour.”