Want to organise Kabaddi World Cup in 2020, informs E Prasad Rao
Technical director of International Kabaddi Federation E Prasad Rao has informed that the World Cup will be played in 2020 and the Federation is finalising a slot for the event. Rao, who is also the technical director of the PKL, has revealed that they want to change the lobby rule in the future.
Kabaddi World Cup will return next year as the International Kabaddi federation (IKF) is finalising the dates for the world event. There are not a lot of international events in kabaddi and last time the World Cup was played in 2016 and India were crowned the champions. After Kabaddi Masters and the Asian Games in 2018, the Indian national team has not played a single international game.
IKF’s technical director E Prasad Rao, during an interaction with the media in Ahmedabad ahead of the PKL final, has revealed that the world body is mulling over some international triangular, quadrangular series or Test matches between the national teams.
“We had a recent meeting about the development of international kabaddi and plans for triangular, quadrangular series or Test matches are in the pipeline. It may not be possible for teams from Asia to travel to Europe, so we want to start tournaments between neighbouring countries,” Rao was quoted as saying by Scroll.
“We are finalising a slot for the World Cup that is set to be held next year. There were plans for it to happen in 2019 but they did not materialise. It’s still not decided yet but we want to have the World Cup in 2020.”
Rao has also mentioned about the controversial lobby rule and said that there are plans to change that in the future. According to the current rule, if a defender goes into the lobby, following a raider who has gone there without a touch, he is given out. There are some loopholes in this rule and raiders have been clever enough to take advantage of that.
“We want to change it [lobby rule] and we are experimenting with the outcomes if we alter that rule. We are looking at football and basketball. When the ball goes out, the play is dead. Similarly, when the raider goes out, the play should be dead,” the technical director explained.
“We have a panel of senior coaches where we propose changes. They experiment it and give us the feedback. Like all rule changes we will follow this procedure for this change as well.”
