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Anand, who captained India for five years and enjoyed reasonable success, said for his generation playing for the flag was a different emotion altogether.
Indian tennis star Sumit Nagal opted out of plaing for India at the Davis Cup (X)
Former skipper Anand Amritraj finds it “ridiculous” that top Indian players have not turned up to represent India at the Davis Cup, saying that money or any other reason should not be a factor when it comes to playing for the country.
India are taking on Togo from Saturday but best-ranked singles player Sumit Nagal and Yuki Bhambri, who is now the country’s best doubles player, did not make themselves available for the World Group I play-off.
Anand, who captained India for five years and enjoyed reasonable success, said for his generation playing for the flag was a different emotion altogether.
“To me, to Vijay, to Ramesh, it was a huge honour to play for the country. Whether you got paid or not, we didn’t get paid. We were just doing it because we enjoyed playing Davis Cup. It was the highlight of our year whether we played South Club in Calcutta, DLTA in Delhi or any place in Chennai or Pune where we played some matches,” Amritraj told PTI in an interview.
“I just don’t understand. You got the other 50 weeks in the year to make money. Especially the money that is involved now is 100 times what we used to get paid.
“It’s ridiculous that people would not play for whatever reason. No matter what, no matter who’s in the federation, no matter who’s captain or whatever, you should definitely play for the country. If you’re good enough (injury-free), you should play. To me, it’s as simple as that.”
After a long time, India have got a home tie and a reasonably easy one as Togo do not have formidable players. Their best is not even ranked top-1000. This has sparked a debate about whether India could have experimented by playing youngsters.
Anand, though, said India should always play their best players.
“I honestly feel that we should play the best team possible only because if we win 3-0 then the kids can play. The next generation can play. But I think we should get this match out of the way.
“They (Togo) can’t be too bad, in my opinion. If they beat Latvia and Indonesia and Indonesia has always been reasonably good. I think we should play our best team which is these two boys, Ram and Sasikumar.
“You really don’t want to take any chances or have any regrets later in case somebody gets injured, something happens. In tennis anything can happen. So I think you should definitely play your best team.”
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
