Kabaddi
Kabaddi: The Art Of Tackles And Tagging
All you need to know about the sport.
KABADDI
© Ali Bharmal
India is the place where the fiasco and passion for sports runs in each of the individuals. First, the era of cricket, then progressive fever of hockey and now the sport of kabaddi finally gets to enter in the limelight. No one really envisioned the kind of success the sport of kabaddi would enjoy. It’s almost overwhelming how the masses have taken to this sport.
The U Mumba kabaddi team, owned by U Sports, has been one of the reasons for new players like Anup Kumar to flourish and be recognized. U Sports is looking at a first of its kind kabaddi arena and also has an enabler programme for the young athletes to grow into professional Kabaddi players. It runs a parallel incubation programme called U Mumba Future Stars which offers kabaddi players in the age group of 18-22 years, a platform to demonstrate their talent with a goal of becoming an integral part of the pro-team.
Talks on including international players in fore coming kabaddi leagues are going on. Introduction of international players in the Indian leagues will form an intrinsic part of each team’s line-up and be instrumental in raising the bar for kabaddi as a sport in their respective countries.
The history of this game is quite long, dating back to the pre-historic period, though played in a different manner and accord. After the 1930s, during the birth of the modern kabaddi, the sport was reaching out all over India and even in some parts of southern Asia. The first of the rules of kabaddi were into preparation in the state of Maharashtra during the year 1921. The rules which were amended were put into application during the All India Kabaddi Tournament in the same year (1923).
In a match involving an odd one to tackle and win against a team of seven players, kabaddi is labelled to be a game involving a lot of struggle and intensive play. The players manning the defence are called ‘Antis’ while the others are called the ‘Raider.’ Carrying an attack is termed as a ‘Raid’. This antis, if touched by the raider during the time of attack is declared ‘out’ only if they fail to catch the raider before he returns back to his home court. The ‘out’ player can only return back on court if his team’s raider tags a rival. Another possible option being where his remaining team members succeed to catch the rival team’s Raider.
Kabaddi’s rules would seem irredeemably arcane. But the popularity with which the sport has been followed in recent years would prove that kabaddi is now a huge player in India's sporting scene.