Cyrus Poncha believes 2018 has been a significant season for Indian Squash

Cyrus Poncha believes 2018 has been a significant season for Indian Squash

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With two silvers achieved by India in the Gold Coast Common Wealth Games in 2018 as opposed to one gold in 2014, coach Cyrus Poncha accepted that 2018 has been a good perspective to Indian Squash. Poncha, however, wanted the players striving to reach World’s top 10 ranks as a future embarkment.

The year 2018 has witnessed significant achievements for the Indian Squash. The Squash Association Tour titles for the first time was bestowed upon youngsters Aditya Jagtap and Velavan Senthilkumar. Ramit Random achieved a title in Abu Dhabi and has shown sincere development over the last one year, where he jumped 400 places to reach World rank 63. Further, the silver conquerer in CWG 2018, Joshna Chinappa, defeated former World Champion Nicol David to establish her dominance.

Though Coach Poncha is glad for the performance, he expects the players to aim higher. In his interaction with ‘ The field’, Poncha spoke about his expectations and further course of actions concerned with the Indian Squash. The Indian Coach believes that improvement in the Indian Squash is majorly an accumulation of last decade's efforts.

“Absolutely. I’d say we have had a good run over the last few years. Indian squash, what it was, maybe a decade ago to what it is today, it’s a massive jump whether it is the juniors or seniors. The performances of the seniors have been especially heartwarming and we hope it continues to improve this year and years to come."

While one can easily see the springing up of leagues in every sport, Poncha claims that a Squash League may not be viable.

“For the last five years, the talks are happening, it’s being discussed. We have been talking to stakeholders. We are yet not convinced of sustainability in terms of the viewership, however. More people are interested in the sport now, thanks largely to social media. But is the sport popular enough to make the average sport fan to turn on the television to watch a squash league? We will get there, hopefully, but a league is not yet viable. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. At this point, we have not found a solution where stakeholders can break even, and we don’t the good work we have done in the recent past, to go backwards.”

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