India has an ‘excellent chance’ of retaining Chess Olympiad title: captain Srinath

If the India Open team is to replicate its near-perfect Chess Olympiad 2024 campaign, it will take some doing.  

India will have the ‘defending champion’ tag attached to it throughout the global competition in Samarkand in September and will be expected to deliver another strong show. But captain N. Srinath stressed that his squad will not carry any “baggage”, saying that it will begin from square one just like any other team. 

“We will not do that (put themselves under pressure for being the reigning champ); we are all professionals. We start from zero this time. But we will definitely look to have the positive team spirit which we had in the last Olympiad. We will continue to have fun,” Srinath said on the sidelines of the just-concluded Chennai Grand Masters here. 

The non-playing leader is optimistic about retaining the crown despite the indifferent form of some of his squad members. World champion D. Gukesh, R. Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin make up the playing contingent.

“I am pretty confident that we will do excellently. Before the last Olympiad, we never thought that we would win the way we did. We will have the same approach, but we will know about the form of our players only after the first few rounds. So, it is hard to say which team will set the standards. Host Uzbekistan, the USA and China will be among the top challengers, but we have an excellent chance,” Srinath added. Will his players walk the talk?

The Indian squads: Open: D. Gukesh, R. Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin; captain: N. Srinath. Women: Koneru Humpy, R. Vaishali, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agrawal and B. Savitha Shri; captain: Swayams Mishra.