Indian kabaddi team likely to tour Pakistan

An Indian kabaddi team is likely to tour Pakistan in the next few days to engage in a series with a club from Pakistan, which will mostly carry national team’s players.

Nukta has learnt that an Indian team, which is expected to play in the name of Indian Tigers, will meet a star-studded Pakistani club in Lahore in a series of matches from April 15-19.

Sources said that the Indian team will carry India’s top players from circle zone of Indian Punjab and those areas where circle style kabaddi is prevalent.

“It will be a team of the Sikh community which will carry top Indian players. It’s from India’s kabaddi circle zone and hopefully the tour will be made,” a source told this correspondent.

This correspondent has learnt that the Indian team has also got Pakistan’s visas.

Sporting ties between the two nations have been weakened by the tense political relations. India, in particular, has been constantly preventing its sports teams from crossing the border.

A long wait

Both Pakistan and India have not played against each other since they last met in the Kabaddi World Cup in Pakistan in 2020, an event which was won by the hosts for the first time in its kabaddi history.

A few months ago, Indian national team was scheduled to tour Pakistan to play a few matches in Kartarpur Corridor on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak but at the 11th hour India’s government did not allow it to visit which damaged the entire hard work done by the Pakistan Kabaddi Federation (PKF) and the Punjab government.

Pakistan had also held a camp at Lahore for the matches.

India’s mixed martial arts team was seen in Lahore a few months ago. However no top teams could tour Pakistan for the last few years.

Even last year, India did not send its team to Pakistan to feature in the Blind Cricket World Cup which was hosted by Lahore and Multan. It was Pakistan which won that World Cup.

India also did not send its athletics team for the South Asian Cross Country Athletics Championship which was hosted by Islamabad last February.

In these examples, the respective associations and federations had confirmed participation but Indian government stopped them from proceeding to Pakistan at the 11^th hour.

India and Pakistan are powerhouses of kabaddi but strained relations between the two neighboring nations have hugely damaged the sport.

Additionally, India has already confirmed its entry for an international volleyball event which will be held in Pakistan this summer but it is likely that the Indian government will not give its team permission to tour Pakistan.