Kabaddi at the 15th Asian Games : We are the Champions

So what if we stink at Weight Lifting competitions at an international level, so what if our famous cricket players let us down time and time again. Plus what’s the big deal if we continue to loss Tennis matches because of ego clashes between our famous duo, Mahesh and Leander. At one point in time, we were the Hockey Champions but today we get thrashed by countries totally alien to the game. And lets not even get started with the our world status when it comes to Football, Basketball, Swimming and the like.

But thankfully all is not lost in the matters of Sports and we do have a reason to feel proud, atleast for once.

India won its 5th Gold Medal in kabaddi at the on-going Asian games held in Doha. And to add cherry on the cake, our boys excelled against none other but our friendly neighbor nation – the Pakistani Team.

Ever since the game was introduced at the Beijing Games in 1990, the gold has been a certainty. And even as India played against Pakistan in the finals, the result was never in doubt. In the end the scoreline read 35-22.

Dinesh Kumar, the captain of the Indian kabaddi team, said: “Just like how India cheers in a cricket match between India and Pakistan, the crowd cheered us here. We played very well today. We did commit a few errors but our defence and offence was solid in the game.”

Although teams like Bangladesh and Japan have shown an improvement in standards, India have managed to keep their nose ahead through it all. Although this was a far from perfect performance, the captain was all praise for the way his team played.

“The team played very well. All 12 players including those who sat out of the game are good,” Dinesh added.

Though the media is complaining over the non-hero like welcome for the kabaddi team at the airport, I say it’s all nothing but in the good interest of the sport.

I mean haven’t we all witnessed the impact of over-hyping, advertising and publicity on sports like Cricket, Tennis and Hockey.