New Delhi [India], September 20 (ANI): India’s males’s and girls’s kabaddi groups start their marketing campaign on the twentieth Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya on September 21 as reigning champions and can search to defend their titles gained at Hangzhou 2022.
The competitors will likely be held on the Tokai Citizens Gymnasium from September 21 to 26, with ten males’s groups and eight girls’s groups within the fray throughout a round-robin group stage, semi-finals and gold medal matches, in response to a launch.
The teams
India’s males are in Group A alongside hosts Japan, Republic of Korea, Chinese Taipei and Bangladesh. Group B options Iran, Nepal, Thailand, Pakistan and Malaysia, conserving India and Iran, the game’s two largest powers, aside by way of the group part.
India’s girls are in Group A with Iran, Japan and Bangladesh, whereas Group B contains Chinese Taipei, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Nepal. Unlike the boys, India’s girls face Iran within the group stage itself.
Teams to Watch
Iran stand out as the game’s different real energy; they’re the one nation in addition to India to have gained Asian Games kabaddi gold in each the boys’s and girls’s occasions. It was Iran who ended India males’s run of seven straight golds at Jakarta 2018, and Iran once more who denied the Indian girls on the similar Games, profitable the ultimate 27-24.
India avenged each defeats at Hangzhou, beating Iran for males’s gold whereas the ladies held off Chinese Taipei 26-25 in a ultimate that went all the way down to the wire. Chinese Taipei’s push to that ultimate has established them as a standard-bearer of the ladies’s sport exterior India and Iran, whereas Bangladesh and Republic of Korea, each a number of Asian Games medallists, spherical out a testing group for the Indian males. Hosts Japan can even draw on residence assist in entrance of a crowd new to top-level kabaddi.
India’s males’s head coach Balwan Singh has 14 worldwide gold medals as a coach, and that tally contains all three of India’s males’s Kabaddi World Cup titles, gained in 2004, 2007 and 2016. He will likely be working alongside Assistant coach BC Ramesh, who has gained the Pro Kabaddi League twice with Bengal Warriorz (Season 7) after which Puneri Paltan (Season 10).Â
On the crew’s strategy to opponents, Singh was clear that no facet can be taken evenly. “We don’t consider any opponent to be weak. If we make a mistake somewhere, the opponent becomes heavier, so the focus has to be on making the fewest possible errors over the full 40 minutes,” he mentioned, including that the dressing room’s instruction to the gamers is to respect each rival whatever the scoreline.
India’s girls, coached by Neeta Dadwe and Mamtha Poojari, are chasing a fourth gold in 5 Asian Games appearances, having medalled at each version they’ve entered – gold in 2010, 2014 and 2022, silver in 2018. Pushpa Rana has been named the captain, with Sonali Shingate set to play a key function. They are joined by Sanju Devi, MVP (Most worthy participant) of the 2025 Women’s Kabaddi World Cup.
“Iran and Chinese Taipei are the teams we’re watching most closely,” Assistant coach Mamtha Poojari mentioned, noting Iran’s high-tempo type by way of all 40 minutes of a match. With Iran ready within the group stage on September 23 and Chinese Taipei a possible semi-final or ultimate opponent, India’s girls face a tighter street to gold than their male counterparts, who meet Iran provided that each groups attain the summit conflict.
Fixtures and Schedule (IST)Sep 21: Men vs Japan (9:45 AM), Women vs Bangladesh (4:15 PM)Sep 22: Men vs South Korea (7:15 AM)Sep 23: Women vs Iran (8:30 AM), Men vs Bangladesh (9:45 AM)Sep 24: Men vs Chinese Taipei (9:45 AM), Women vs Japan (4:15 PM)Sep 25: Women’s SF1 (9:30 AM), Men’s SF1 (10:45 AM), Women’s SF2 (2:30 PM), Men’s SF2 (3:45 PM)Sep 26: Women’s Final (9:30 AM), Men’s Final (2:30 PM). (ANI)