CHENNAI, JULY 23: When the Indian contingent for the World Junior women's squash championship leaves Mumbai tonight, one of India's most promising player, Joshna Chinnappa of Chennai, will not be on the flight to Antwerp, Belgium.Joshna, who is four months shy of 13 years, has been making waves on the Asian junior circuit with a string of solid performances, including winning the Malaysian junior championship this year. But she finds herself in the cold.The Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) has ruled that since she did not participate in its training programme, she was not invited for the recent selection trials here, and consequently, not included in the Indian team.However, Joshna's father Anjan Chinnappa asserted that his daughter was unable to attend the training camp due to unavoidable circumstances, and that the SRFI was unwilling to give due weightage to her status as the country's leading junior player.But beneath the surface lies a more complex story with SRFI and Chinnappablaming each other for various lapses. The SRFI, on its part, issued a show-cause notice to Anjan after Joshna was entered for the under-13 event (subsequently she pulled out) at the recent Malaysian championship while she was cleared for only the under-15 category. Joshna went on to win the under-15 title.Speaking to The Indian Express, Chinnappa claimed Joshna submitted her entry for the under-13 event when she was asked by one of the organisers whether she would like to participate in this category also, apart from under-15.``It was not our intention to defy the SRFI but my daughter only agreed to take part in under-13 section. Thus, on her return from Ipoh (prior to the Malaysian Open), she found her name in the under-13 draw. But the SRFI objected and she withdrew to play only in the under-15 section,'' said Chinnappa. ``For that, we received a show-cause notice,'' he added.Thereafter, following a meeting between Chinnappa and SRFI secretary-general N Ramachandran, the federation withdrewthe show-cause notice after the father submitted a letter of regret. At this point, it appeared as though the issue was amicably resolved.Chinnappa said he subsequently submitted a written request to SRFI to invite Joshna for the June 17 selection trials in Chennai. But Ramachandran denied having received any such correspondence.Chinnappa said: ``I was given an assurance that my request will be met. But on the morning of June 17, when I telephoned Ramachandran, he said Joshna will not be called for the trials since the two manager and coach (Rajiv Reddy and Cyrus Poncha respectively) were against it.''Ramachandran said he had not given any such assurance, but, in fact, had categorically stated that the SRFI ``would go by the book'' and since Joshna did not attend the training programme, she had made herself ineligible for selection.``I do admit that Joshna is a talented player. But the federation certainly cannot make an exception in her case when the other girls have attended the trainingprogramme. We do not want to set a precedent,'' asserted Ramachandran.Poncha said in Mumbai that he had no say in the selection procedure and denied having any hand in Joshna's non-inclusion. ``I just know that she did not turn up for the trials and hence was not eligible for selection.''The off-shoot of this sorry tale is that the National Under-14 champion who also won titles in the Singapore (under-14), Hong Kong (under-13), Scottish (under-13) and Malaysian (under-15) championships in the past one year, will be probably doing her school homework when her thoughts will be in Antwerp, dreaming of playing for India.MUMBAI: The Indian team is scheduled to fly for Belgium tonight from here. The team is grouped with Egypt, France, Germany and South Africa and is seeded 19th in its maiden appearance. The format is round robin with the top three players of each team playing their counterparts.Team: Deepali Anvekar, Pia Abraham, Vaidehi Reddy, Supriya Balsekar. Coach: Cyrus Poncha.Manager: Rajiv Reddy.
