At the first time when there was a television channel station airing Kabaddi tournament, probably most common reactions from Indian was “are you insane? Who wants to watch that?”. But things become so much different now.
In the past, most of Indian would disregard Kabaddi and absolutely overlooked it. Moreover, the stereotype of this sport was all about playing with dusty bowls. That was why Kabaddi had bad reputation compare to any other sport that comes from outside India.
Growing and Famous
But before we jump into the fact how famous Kabaddi nowadays, do you know what Kabaddi is?
Kabaddi
popular with other names such as Do-do, Hututu, and Ghidugudu, is basically an old mob based game originally from India. The rules are pretty simple. Sides are divided into two things: blockers and raiders. To get a score point, a raider has to go into the opposition’s zone, mark out the opponent with his body, and then go back to his own territory without getting tackled. He will be eliminated every time his opponent is able to catch him and it affects reduced point of the team.
With very minimum rules and simple flow, Kabaddi becomes a fun sport to be watched even for people who do not know the fine details of this game.
After a long journey, eventually, this game gets international exposure. Summer Olympics in Berlin, 1936, was the first time Kabaddi went outside India as a demonstration sport. More than 50 years later, this sport was inserted in Asian Games Beijing 1990. And it still keeps going on until now.
International Level
In international level, Kabaddi’s players usually are strong enough, well-built, agile, and most important thing is having astonishing level of endurance. It because this game requires both strategy and stamina. Strategy is not only beneficial for becoming champion but also to prevent any physical injury.
International Level
Since many countries right now already have professional Kabaddi’s team and federation. Country Such as in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, China, Srilanka, Pakistan, etc. People all around the world can enjoy this game during international event from their television or Youtube channel. Besides the fun that people may get, for Indian itself, knowing Kabaddi already becomes one of the greatest sport coming from South Asia can raise their nationalism and patriotism to India.
And even though more than 50 countries are involved in each Kabaddi tournaments, but every this is not the end of every Kabaddi player’s dream. Hopefully, in the future, Kabaddi becomes respected as big as other sport like football or badminton.
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