PSCB favourite

JAMMU, January 13: Another edition of the senior national table tennis championships 8212; the 59th to be exact 8212; is here again, although the scenario has not changed much.

Petroleum Sports Control Board PSCB which has in its ranks two-time national champion Chetan P Baboor, S Raman, Arup Basak, Arjun Dutta and S Sriram, need not worry about retaining the team title which they won at Thane last year. Bengal and Railways, with a sprinkling of young talent at their disposal, do not have enough power to upset the star-studded PSCB men.

The 26 teams in the men8217;s section have been divided into four groups with the top two teams moving into the quarter-finals. In the final at Thane Maharashtra, Bengal, fielding a very inexperienced team, had extended PSCB to the full before losing 2-3. Baboor and Sriram lost a match each. But since then, Baboor has moved by leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the field, having done immensely well in the international circuit as well.