After an unfortunate accident on Monday delayed the start of the 47th Junior National Kabaddi Championship, the tournament kickstarted with defending champions SAI boys (Sports Authority of India) and Haryana girls dominating the opening day at Suryapet, Telangana.
Taking on Bihar in the Group A match of the boys’ category, SAI won 87-24 while Haryana beat Jammu & Kashmir 74-12 in the girls’ division at the SP Office Grounds.
For the SAI boys, substitute Narender Hoshiyar got a Super 10 with 13 raid points while defenders Rahul Sethpal, Jaideep Kuldeep, Sachin Suresh and Sagar Naresh each recorded a High 5. Their impeccable defence thus inflicted 12 all outs on Bihar.
Sunita S starred for Haryana girls with a Super 10 (12 points) with the team backing up with points all-round. They even inflicted eight all outs on Jammu & Kashmir.
Only six matches were held each in the boys and the girls’ categories on the opening day. The group stage matches will continue on Tuesday.
After the group stages are played in a round-robin format, where a team will play other teams in their respective pools once, the top two teams from each group will advance to the knockout stage on Wednesday. The semi-finals and finals are scheduled to be played on Friday.
The knockout stage will start with the pre-quarterfinals, where the winner of Pool A will take on the runner-up of Pool H, the winner of Pool B will meet the runner-up of Pool G and so on.
Players who perform well at the Junior National Kabaddi Championship 2021 will be on the radar for the Indian national kabaddi team. Pro Kabaddi star Ajay Thakur, an Asian Games champion and a Kabaddi World Cup winner, is in the six-member (three men and three women) selection committee for India probables.
Feature image courtesy: Pro Kabaddi
