Jaipur Pink Panthers clinched India’s Pro Kabaddi League title on Sunday with a 35-24 win over Mumbai’s U Mumba in a traditional contact sport that mixes tag and wrestling.
The Panthers sent a packed stadium into raptures as they sprinted ahead 18-14 at half time, leading to a nail-biting finish on U Mumba’s home ground.
As whistles blew at the end of the 40-minute match, Panthers owner and Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan leapt up to celebrate with his wife and team as screaming fans waved pink flags to booming music, pyrotechnics and plumes of smoke at the National Sports Club of India.
Since the high-profile launch last month of the new Pro Kabaddi League, with live television coverage, corporate sponsors and brightly coloured lycra strips, eight teams have grabbed, lunged and tackled their way through more than 35 matches.
Kabaddi features two seven-member teams facing off on a tennis court-sized pitch.
A “raider” from each team has to dash into the rival half and touch players from the opposing team without being tackled before escaping back to safety on their side of the court.
Players traditionally chant “kabaddi” repeatedly to prove they are not breaking the rules by drawing breath during that time.
The modern franchise-based league has given a new lease of life to kabaddi, which has been played in sandy backyards across India for generations.
The league has seen support from sports celebrities and billionaires like Nita Ambani, wife of India’s richest man, helping the once grassroots game catapult into the global spotlight.
The league was inspired by the Indian Premier League, cricket’s cash-rich Twenty20 tournament, bringing in foreign players from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Kenya and Turkmenistan.
This first edition of the Pro Kabaddi League saw Japan’s Masayuki Shimokawa play as a raider for Mumbai, and Taiwan’s Wei Yang as a defender for Jaipur.
The game is played in around 35 countries including Pakistan, South Korea and Bangladesh, but India has won all seven gold medals at the Asian Games since it was introduced in 1990.