From mud to mat: Haryana training its youth for kabaddi’s big league Premium

Rahul Chaudhari, 30, is a kabaddi player from Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor, with 1 million Instagram followers. He has 1,039 raid points in 150 Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) matches in his nine-year-long career. The league has catapulted kabaddi from a traditional game to an entertainment sport, with players from humble backgrounds achieving fame and fortune. Haryana has seen a surge in kabaddi training centres, with players from across India aspiring to make it big. PKL has brought a sea change in the lives of players, with fans asking for autographs and selfies. #PantherBoss Abhishek Bachchan says it's the fans that pick up the team when they're having a tough time. #Kabaddi is not yet played at the Commonwealth or Olympic levels, but PKL tweaks rules to keep interest alive. #DreamsComeTrue.

Rahul Chaudhari, 30, popularly known as Showman, has 1 million followers on Instagram, more than Olympians Vijender Singh, Yogeshwar Dutt, and Bajrang Punia. A kabaddi player, Chaudhari, from Uttar Pradesh’s Bijnor, is a raider, meaning he plays offensive, storming the ‘den’ of the opposing team. He has 1,039 raid points in 150 Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) matches in his nine-year-long career, one of just five to have crossed the 1,000 mark.

The former India player, one of those responsible for building the popularity of the game, was bought for just ₹13 lakh at the auctions earlier this month for PKL 2023, a long way from Delhi’s Pawan Sehrawat, 27, who was sold to the Telugu Titans for ₹2.6 crore. He made headlines for being the most expensive player in the league’s history. Last year, the Tamil Thalaivas had bought him for ₹2.26 crore. Sehrawat captained the Indian team that won this year’s Asian Games gold , defeating Iran, after an hour-long fracas over points.

Three players received bids for over ₹2 crore for the 10th season, set to take off on December 2 and extending till February 21, across 12 cities. India is among 36 kabaddi playing nations. Players from Iran, like Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh, also form a part of the PKL.

Kabaddi, a high-impact, low-investment game involving 14 people, seven a side, traditionally played on mud, has been catapulted into an entertainment sport that many men and some women in their late teens, from rural and semi-urban north India, aspire to take up professionally.

Spurred on by the money and fame, Haryana is training its own youth and those from neighbouring States for kabaddi’s big league. In both the men’s and women’s national teams — the latter too won gold at the Asian Games — half the players are from Haryana, as are a majority in the PKL.

The PKL website says in its first year of telecast, viewership hit “522 million, higher than the Hockey India League, FIFA World Cup, and the Wimbledon Men’s Final”. In 2016, Broadcast Audience Research Council data found that of the non-cricket sports (20% of live sports viewership), PKL registered the highest viewership at 61%. On the PKL YouTube channel, a promo video has 11 million views. The game is not yet played at the Commonwealth or Olympic levels. However, according to Sehrawat, to keep interest alive, PKL tweaks rules, such as allowing more substitutions, raids, larger squads, to make the sport more “competitive” and “interesting”.

Sehrawat began to be recognised at airports and public places, with fans asking for autographs and selfies, but his mother still wanted him to get a government job. “Now that I am an assistant manager at the Reserve Bank of India, she is relieved,” he says. He is also pursuing a master’s in English through correspondence.