Since 1990, when kabaddi was included in Asian Games for the first time, India have been the undisputed king of the sport. But on Friday, their crown faced a major scare from Iran, who almost toppled India from the top.
The challenge was so great that the six-time defending champions India had to shed their blood, literally, to edge out the spirited but inexperienced Iran 27-25 in the last few minutes to win their seventh consecutive gold medal at the Songdo Global University Gymnasium on Friday.
Such was Iran’s dominance in the match that for 37 minutes — kabaddi is played over 40 minutes with two 20-minute halves — India was only trying to catch up with their fitter and faster opponents. For a team which has ruled the sport for 24-years, and even much more than that, it was a reality check that other nations are making rapid progress in kabaddi.
“We took them a bit lightly I would say. We never expected them to be so aggressive and that they would be attacking us so deeply,” Indian captain Rakesh Kumar told The Pioneer after the match.
“We saw videos of their previous matches and they never went so deep in opposition’s half. They were always attacking from outside. But today they played very differently,” he added.
The young team from Iran — all the players were below 25 years — looked a better side with more energy and pace. Their speed caught Indians unawares as they conceded a lona — a term for the situation when all the players of the team are out — within the 10 minutes of the first half and were trailing by six points (7-13).
At one point, Iran even extended the lead to 10 points but before going into the break, India recovered a bit through Anup Kumar. One of Anup’s raids brought three points and reduced the opponents to four players from seven. The score still read 13-21 in favour of Iran but according to Rakesh, it was the turning point of the match.
“We re-assessed our strategy in the break. When we came back, we were five and they were four. We knew that if we can take one more point, they would be reduced to three and it would become easier for us to enforce a lona. It was very crucial for us because if we had failed to grab that opportunity, we probably would not have been wearing this gold medal,” Rakesh, who hails from Bahadurgarh district of Haryana, said.
Good teams generally need just one chance to pull down their opponent. After that successful lona, Indians started to look better organised and strategically superior in the second half. They collected several points to equalise at 21-21. Iran mostly scored through their 22-year-old raider Hadi Oshtorak and so it was befitting that India took the lead for the first time (in 37th minute) in the match by catching him during one of the raids.
With just three minutes to go and a thin lead – two points (26-24) to defend, India could not afford a mistake. Anup, a senior playing in his third Asian Games, committed one. In his quest to finish the game by collecting one more point and reducing the opponents to two players, Anup went in too deep and the fleet-footed Iranians didn’t waste time to push him out of the playing zone to reduce the lead to just one point in the 39th minute of the game.
“That was a big mistake,” the captain, who plays for Patna Pirates in the Pro Kabaddi league, conceded.
“He is a senior player and he knew what we needed. He never intended to go so deep but somehow he chased the opponents too far in their territory and got caught. It happens. There was a lot of pressure on everyone,” he added.
With just a few seconds to go, Iran had to earn a point to force a tie-breaker but the Iranian raider Meraj Sheykh wasted too much time and got caught to give India the match.
“We knew we would win,” Indian coach Balwan Singh said. “But we must applaud the Iranian team for putting up such a good show. They really scared us for some time. These things happen in sports. We were under more pressure because we were defending our title. They had nothing to lose,” he added. Iran’s coach Gholamreza Mazandarani, however, seemed unhappy with some decisions by the referees and suggested that there should be a provision for a video review challenge.