It's do or die for Indian kabaddi now

It has been a shock for India, losing in men's kabaddi at the Asian Games, and the women settling for silver against Iran. There has understandably been a lot of talk about India losing its stranglehold on kabaddi. We have won in the indigenous sport since its inception in the Games in 1990.

All the chatter is justified, as it is like Korea losing in Taekwondo or Japan losing in Sumo. Nations that have given birth to a particular sport are naturally the strongest at it, and sweep the medals initially. They are then expected to continue their good run.

This, though, may not always be the case; other nations do catch up with the 'foreign' sport so to speak. They eventually overtake those that have dominated for so long, and then take the reins, forging a new path.

Years ago, India was a hockey powerhouse. Soon though, that domination was broken after European countries started to play the power game. India had to go back to the drawing board, re-look at how they play and actually change style and tactics to start competing strongly once again.

West Indies was once a cricketing power, but the old order yielded, giving place to the new. Perhaps, something like that has happened in kabaddi, though it may be too early to say. India now needs to go back to the drawing board, identify and rectify lacunae which may have resulted in our defeat. There will be time in India to take a detailed look into what went wrong.

There is a possibility that nothing drastically went wrong, other nations have just become better at the game. This is the natural course of things in sport. We now have to look ahead and keep an eye on countries that may have nosed ahead, and work on overpowering them and maintain our hegemony in the game.

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