The Newly Selected Indian Mixed Team

After a gruellng selection trial featuring the top eighteen ranked pairs in the country, the following three pairs emerged on top.

1. Kiran Nadar and B Satyanarayana
2. Himani and Rajeev Khandelwal
3. Bindiya Kohli and T V Ramani

Kiran and Satya literally stamped their class all over the event, having ensured their selection with two rounds to go. I can only hope this form of theirs continues throughout the year.

Himani and Rajeev too showed just why they are such a formidable pair. Indeed, through most of the event they were largely in second place and even leaders once every few rounds before Kiran and Satya surged ahead.

I have to say that I am really thrilled to see a new face in the Indian Mixed Teams this year in the form of Bindiya Kohli. I am proud to say that we first spotted her potential as long back and July 2021 and we pleased to see her taking huge leaps towards fulfilling the same. Indeed, the efforts she has taken to build her skills and stamina are worth mentioning and emulating. Her partnership with Ramani started about 2 years ago. It first caught our eye when they had a notable performance in a mixed pairs event conducted by BridgeFromHome in June 2022. When Ramani and she won the Prime Mixed Pairs event in December 2023, she had remarked on the effort they had put in towards building her stamina and ensuring good partnership discipline. Clearly those efforts have paid off.

Due credit to Ramani too for investing in this partnership with her and developing it over the past couple of years!

We admit that it does seem a bit skewed to gush about the pair who came third in the selection trials, but it is really nice to see a fresh face.

The details of the standings, along with round by round results and deal records can be seen here.

I am sharing a few observations and suggestions below for whatever they are worth.

Observations

1. While the selection of the first two pairs never appeared to be in doubt, the fight for the third spot was quite exciting.
2. The early contenders for the spot were the youngsters, Subashree Basu and Soham Sarkar. While they missed out this time, we are confident that their time will come. They have a lot going for them. The primary factor is the fact that they play as an open partnership; something which most of the leading mixed partnerships have been doing in the recent past. It also helps that off the table, they are the best of friends!
3. Towards the end of the second day of the finals, a new contender emerged in the form Aditi Jhaveri and Biswajit Poddar. It was indeed exciting to see a fresh face emerging as a contender and full marks to Biswajit for having developed their partnership and nurtured Aditi to achieve such great heights.
4. We have to return to Bindiya and Ramani for the grand finale. Lying 5th, with 2 rounds to go, they pulled up their socks and finished with two magnificent scores of 17 odd over the event leaders and 14 odd over the 4th place to seal their spot in the team in styel.

Suggestions

Going forward, I have the following suggestions for the Indian mixed team. Once again, while it sounds pretentious, my only contention is that these suggestions are generic and have little to do with specific bridge skills where I am a relative nobody.

1. Physical fitnessAll events are extremely draining physically. Hence improvement in physical fitness (or maintenance thereof) is a made a mandatory part of their preparations for the championships
2. CoachingThis point was made to me by somebody among the top contenders for qualification. Hence I believe it carries weight.The coach should study the strengths and weaknesses of each pair in various aspects of the game (e.g. slam bidding, competing in high level pre-empt situations) and suggest methods of bolstering their tactics / techniques in such situations. Indeed, if the pairs are aware of areas where they would like such focus, they may suggest the same to their coach.
3. Playing together in open eventsThis one is essentially for Bindiya and Ramani. While Ramani does have commitments in open events, it would help the partnership a great deal if he could play with Bindiya in the run up to Argentina.To what extent this is practicable, I don't know. But it would undoubtedly help Bindiya hone her skills for the upcoming tough challenge ahead.

In Conclusion

I will conclude by once again congratulating the successful pairs and wishing them all the best in their preparations and performances in international events this year. May they go from strength to strength

Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.