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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Kabaddi World Cup 2016 - Ajay Thakur ensures Championship >>!!

Feeling ecstatic   ~ 

Feeling very happy  ~ India has won the Kabaddi World Cup 2016 – win, yet another time.  This time it was the brilliance of Ajay Thakur that enabled finish, beating  Iran 38-29- a win by 9 matches, in a match that had tense moments and Iran leading comfortably at one stage.

The swashbuckler, instant hitter – Virender Sehwag has already tweeted : ‘Yeh Jazba ,yeh Spirit ,Hamka De De Thakur. Ajay Thakur, you are a rockstar. Haar ke Jeetne waale ko Team India kehta hain.Champions#INDvIRN’ …

What a win ~ and that means a lot to Kabaddi fans. I remember that day of 25th June 1983 – late night, when Kapil Devils, written off by the media, beat the mighty West Indies – getting India much needed credibility and that win, perhaps changed the way, Indians have been regarded in the Cricket field.  This win may not be the same ~ Indians have won Kabaddi World Cups and were indeed the favourites, yet the match was not won easily, in fact for sometime, Iran were perched on top.

It all happened well for Team India at  ‘the Arena by TransStadia’ situate in the heart of Ahmedabad, a first-of-its-kind multi-purpose stadium in India with state-of-the-art facilities, built as a Public Private Partnership project with the Department of Tourism and approved by the then Chief Minister, Shri  Narendra Modiji. Kabaddi World Cup has been  running since 2004. India has always won Gold Medals in Both men's and women's teams. The 1st  Kabaddi World Cup was held in 2004, 2nd was in 2007, and then annually from 2010 onwards.  Last year it could not be held and now Indians are the undisputed Champions.

India team led by Anup Kumar has always dominated this event by winning all the gold medals in both categories of men's and women's.  The mens’ team has won all the 7 World Cups.  This year Kabaddi world cup  was contested by  12 teams : Poland made its debut – the others are : United States of America, Canada, England, Australia, Iran, Poland, Argentina, Bangladesh, Korea, Japan and Kenya.

In the final of last edition of the Kabaddi world cup India defeated Pakistan to win the gold medal.  This version began with a shock defeat.  In the inaugural match, India looked comfortably closing in – but in dying moments, they were stunned by Korea.   The finish came with a grand move by  Jan Kun Lee at the death.  The stadium fell silent as  Korea  upset the starter  winning 34-32 in the first match of the competition.  Today, there was so much noise as the entire stadium filled in, supported the National team. 

The final result is a 9 point win – India beats Iran 38-29. Pardeep Narwal had some poor day today – was unable to take points despite many raids.  At a stage when Iran were up 20-17, it was Ajay Thakur’s sterling performance.  With his upper part of the body grabbed upon by the Iranian player, he used his foot to equal things. 20-20! ~ and from that time, India never looked back. The dying moments were a bit tense for the fan, not for the Captain and the team – they kept adding points. With close to  six minutes left in the contest Nitin Tomar with an impeccable raid  picked up two points;  Iran were down to two; another raid two points + all out points – and Indians were clearly breathing easy, exhibiting their clear dominance with talent and strategy.

22nd Oct 2016 – a day to remember for fans ! – Well done, Team India.

A happy fan – S. Sampathkumar

22nd Oct 2o16 # 21.40 hrs.

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