Opinion An opaque bout

The Boxing Federation of India swears by its performance-based selection process.

By all accounts, Nikhat Zareen is no match for Mary Kom, the poster-woman of Indian boxing. Take away her six World Championship golds in the lighter categories, and Mary’s Asiad and Olympic medals at 51kg still far outweigh Nikhat’s exploits as a junior and youth boxer. With Tokyo less than a year away, Mary needs to re-acclimatise herself to the flyweight category. It makes sense, then, for her to go to the World Championships in October. What doesn’t seem reasonable, however, is the selection process, which allowed her to do so while a challenger cried foul.

The Boxing Federation of India swears by its performance-based selection process. Only the categories too close to call are resolved via trials. But Mary’s selection in the 51kg division was neither performance-based nor fair to a young boxer like Nikhat. Mary skipped the Asian Championships in April “to prepare for bigger events”, making way for Nikhat to defeat a two-time world champion and return with a bronze. Exploits in recent months have been virtually identical (Nikhat’s silver in Thailand came in a much tougher field than Mary’s gold in Indonesia). The unstated understanding is that the India Open semifinal between the two, which Mary won 4-1, was the clincher.

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However, if the bout in May served as a retroactive trial, why did Sarita Devi line up against Simranjit Kaur in the 60kg trial on Thursday? It’s true that Indian boxing has seen enough instances of young pretenders pulling upsets on selection day only to fizzle out overseas. It is also true that the federation’s result-oriented process has seen more hits than misses. There were enough variables in the Mary-Nikhat case for a trial to be held. ‘Transparency’ is the mantra of the new administrators. But with no real justification for their decision, they’ve shown that they can be as opaque as their predecessors.