This took place well before Sinha joined "The Chase", which was only in 2011. He was pretty good here but I think he has raised his game a lot. University Challenge is usually fairly fast-paced but this episode seemed to run on steroids; Paxman is definitely a lot more sedate these days.
This was apparently the inspiration for Sinha taking quizzing more seriously. A couple of comments including Paxman's at the end about them being good sports for taking part supposedly irked him enough to start practicing and competing properly in quiz tournaments.