How Haryana has remained the talent pool for India’s Kabaddi prowess

It starts with neighbourhood games in the mud — kabaddi is popularly known as ‘mitti ka khel’ here — learning the basic raid and tackle, till a local coach notices their talent and picks them up for professional training. District and state competition follow, and for the best ones, national glory and fame.

For many of India’s national-level kabaddi players, the journey began in a similar way.

On September 26, India secured a double gold in Kabaddi at the just-concluded 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. Both the Indian men’s and women’s teams defeated the corresponding teams from Iran, defending the titles they had won at the last Games in Hangzhou in 2023. The victories were yet another testimony to the country's extraordinary dominance in a sport that remains far less culturally dominant than cricket.

At the centre of this action is Haryana, a state which for years has been recognised — much like wrestling, another sport where Haryana rules — as a hub of kabaddi. Haryana's dominance in Indian kabaddi is clear from the current national teams. Fourteen of India’s 24 men’s and women’s Kabaddi squad came from Haryana — eight of 12 men and five of 12 women. While no other state comes close as a contender in the men’s team, in the women’s squad, Himachal is a close second with four players. But here too Haryana claims a share. One of the four Himachali players, Ritu Negi, also has a Haryana connection, being married to a fellow kabaddi player from the state.

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For 15-year-old Rakesh Balhara, training at a kabaddi ground in Bahu Akhbarpur village in Haryana's Rohtak district, however, the role model is not anyone from the winning Asian Games squad, but Shillu Balhara, an international kabaddi player who made his name playing ‘Circle Kabaddi’, or ‘Badi Kabaddi’ as it is locally known.

Originating in Punjab, Circle Kabaddi is a variant of the traditional game, played on a circular pitch of 22-metre diameter. The format has its own national and international tournaments and continues to draw large crowds and prize money. For youngsters in villages, players such as Shillu are not distant television celebrities. They are local heroes whose careers appear within reach.

Rakesh, who has just passed Class 10, says his father wants him to follow in Shillu’s footsteps. “My father is a great admirer of Shillu Balhara and wants me to be the next Shillu Balhara. He is willing to sell his farms [to fund his son’s training] to see me become an iconic player like Shillu,” adds Rakesh. For many fans of the game, Shillu is the Virat Kohli of Kabaddi who has made his fortune by playing in the mud.

Rakesh’s statement captures both the romance and the risk attached to kabaddi in rural Haryana. A family is prepared to invest its land and savings in a sporting dream because it believes the sport can provide a future.

Perhaps that future appeared more accessible with the launch of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) in 2014.

Reportedly the country’s “second most commercially successful sports league” after cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL), it introduced Kabaddi to city-based franchise ownership and player auctions, among other things. A research paper published in the International Journal of Research and Review Techniques (IJRRT) in 2024 details the PKL’s impact on the game. “The league's innovative format, celebrity endorsements, and high-quality production values have significantly broadened the sport's reach, attracting a broader audience beyond traditional enthusiasts,” it states. Young fans follow professional players on Instagram, watch match clips on YouTube and know the names and auction prices of Pro Kabaddi League stars.

Naveen Kumar, a national kabaddi coach, says the professional league has fundamentally changed the aspiration attached to the sport. “Pro Kabaddi League is the next most-watched sport on television after cricket. It’s not just the fame; the tournament has also made the game financially more rewarding for young players.”

According to reports, the highest PKL auction bid rose from Rs 12.8 lakh in 2014 to Rs 2.605 crore in 2023; the 2025 auction saw a spending of Rs 37.90 crore on 121 players—an auction-value average of about Rs 31.3 lakh.

Especially for those playing the game in rural Haryana, Punjab or Rajasthan, PKL made Kabaddi aspirational.

“Youngsters now start preparing for Pro Kabaddi League right from an early age and there are villages which have state-of-the-art infrastructure to prepare players,” says Kumar.

Here, too, Haryana maintained its dominance in Season 10 of the tournament in 2025; 110 of 243 players were from the state, claims Kuldeep Dalal, chairman of the Amateur Kabaddi Association, Haryana.

“Players from the state who would not find a place in the home state teams are picked up by others,” says Pardeep Narwal, a member of Patna Pirates PKL team, explaining how it has helped many more players take up the game professionally.

The money it brings is being seen in the big houses coming up across Haryana villages and the expensive SUVs, says Deepak Niwas Hooda, former captain of the Indian Kabaddi team, encouraging more parents to send their kids for training.

Despite PKL’s instant fame and money, traditionally the real motivation for parents in Haryana putting their children in sports (whether wrestling or kabaddi) was the lure of securing a stable government job in a sports quota, says Davinder Dhull, former director of sports, Maharshi Dayanand University, Haryana. Anything more, like an Asian Games medal, is an additional gain, he adds.

And while Haryana maintains its dominance in PKL, what the tournament has also done is take talent spotting to hitherto unexplored territories; PKL's Future Kabaddi Heroes programme has reportedly conducted scouting across 18 cities.

Prof Rajender Parsad Garg, veteran sportsperson from Haryana, agrees that with glamour PKL brought to Kabaddi, with film actors buying teams (as in IPL), the game started attracting the attention of the urban audience. "Kabaddi players who would travel by buggies and trains started staying in five-star hotels and travelling by flights. The money push in Kabaddi contributed to drawing urban interest into this ‘village’ game,” he adds.

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Meanwhile, across Haryana, village arenas remain a major talent pool for Kabaddi, whether for the national teams or leagues.

"There are six kabaddi playgrounds in the village where hundreds of players practice every day,” says Balwan Singh, sarpanch of Purkhas village. “The community supports their efforts, felicitates winners and even honours parents for putting the children in Kabaddi. Children as young as 6 to 10 years come to the ground to play.”

Dhull, too, talks of “kabaddi academies in villages of Sonipat, Panipat, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hisar…”.

And as the state celebrates the Asian Games wins — Dalal has been sharing squad details of the two teams, detailing which state the players are from, with the tagline “Haryana ki shaan…Bharat ki jeet” (India’s win, pride of Haryana) — Naveen (the Haryana women’s team coach) recalls the “Narwals [a community] of Kathura-Rindhana village of Sonipat district”. “Between 2015 and 2025, the village has had six or more players across PKL teams,” he says.