Bangladesh Table Tennis Federation (BTTF) has cited ‘disciplinary and fitness’ grounds and ruled out women’s number one Moumita Alam Rumi and men’s number two Mahbub Billah from the World Cup team which is scheduled to be held in Japan later this month.
The federation earlier ruled out defending national champion and number one men’s table tennis player Manash Chowdhury from the Commonwealth Games squad and with the new addition of exclusion of top players from World Cup squad created controversy in the table tennis arena.
The federation officials claimed that Mahbub is out of the team for breaking discipline while Rumi is unfit. Mahbub said he did break discipline code but that was during national championship in February for which he also apologised. And his visa for the World Cup has also been procured by the federation last month.
While Rumi also claimed that she is fully fit for match and tournament as well. “I had back pain but it was when my visa was procured. Now I feel fully fit but they have not even consulted me before excluding me from the team,” said Rumi.
