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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Heart of a raider
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Heart of a raider

As Pro Kabaddi League Season 3 heads towards its finale, a look at why the raider is the star of any team

A raider from Bengal Warriors in the midst of Puneri Paltan in Kolkata on Sunday. Photo: Ashok Nath Dey/Hindustan TimesPremium
A raider from Bengal Warriors in the midst of Puneri Paltan in Kolkata on Sunday. Photo: Ashok Nath Dey/Hindustan Times

NEW DELHI :

The eyes are looking down, darting from one corner to another, surveying the five men circling around him, baiting them. The lips move in a breathless chant of “kabaddi, kabaddi". Quick feet dancing, darting around the mat; looking for a weakness to strike at. Rishank Devadiga, wearing the orange of the home team U Mumba, finds it. Deep into rival territory, his hand reaches for the defender and manages the slightest of touches on his jersey. In a flash, two defenders tackle and pull him down to the mat. But Devadiga twists his body, and sneaks an arm out to get a finger across the line.

The Sunday evening crowd at Mumbai’s National Sports Club of India stadium erupts. The raider has plundered three points from the Jaipur Pink Panthers. He emerges from the heap of bodies unscathed, ready for more.

It is difficult not to cringe at the apparent violence of it. That’s the appeal of all contact sports. But kabaddi, as football player Vince Lombardi once said of American football, is more of a “collision sport". Especially for the raider, who has to take on a maximum of seven players, all baying for his blood, in their half. Sports like boxing and wrestling pride themselves in being mano-a-mano; in kabaddi, it’s seven to one—those are the odds that make raiding such an act of daredevilry.

“There is no place for fear," says Pratap Shetty, the coach of Kolkata’s Pro Kabbadi League (PKL) team, Bengal Warriors.

“When you go for a raid, it doesn’t matter how many men are standing across the line," adds Nitin Tomar of Bengal Warriors, one of the league’s leading raiders. “There is no time to think about it; that will only cloud your judgement. Your job is to go there and get points."

Kabaddi is a sport for big, burly men. The raiders, however, are faster, taller and a bit stronger than their teammates. They have to be more flexible, to have the ability to stretch every limb for maximum reach. Their courage is built inside-out, buffered with layers of hard-earned muscle.

A raid, which lasts a maximum of 30 seconds, is the focal point of the sport and the raiders, the men of action. The popularity and glamour of being, literally, the centre of attention, is alluring.

“Who doesn’t want to be popular?" asks Anup Kumar, captain of the national kabbadi team and also of U Mumba. “Being a raider means all the focus is on you. It also means more pressure and more risk of injury."

Former India captain Rakesh Kumar, who joined the Mumbai franchise this season, recalls his lights-out moment on the mat.

The 33-year-old, one of the veterans of the game, believes that raiding is not just a show of strength and bravado. “On the mat, your biggest assets are your sight and speed. Only trust what you see, because once you are in, there is a lot of talk; defenders shout and try to bluff you with instructions," he says.

The raiders need to be aware of where each of the defenders is all the time. “You cannot show your back to any of them," says Shetty.

There is also a cat-and-mouse element to it. “If I have been tackled by a defender in a game, I usually keep attacking him and try and get points off him," says Patna Pirates’ Rohit Kumar. “I am more determined to take points off him. I am sure that’s how the defenders think too, which makes it exciting and more of a mental battle."

The tall man from Nizampur near Amritsar, where India draws large numbers of its kabaddi talent from, has taken the league by storm, leading all the scoring charts. And his weapon of choice usually has been the running hand touch. He also managed to sneak in a slap on a cheek twice during a marauding performance against Dabang Delhi, when Patna Pirates scored the highest number of points (67) in any season of the PKL.

All the raiders have a signature move, but the game is so fluid that they need a mind that is as quick as the feet.

“You have to adapt," says Anup. “For instance, I was known for my toe touch in Season 1. But I don’t do it as often now, and I can’t keep doing it all the time because defenders are on their guard. Also, I don’t have the speed any more to perfect it. Age is catching up. I have to play more with strategy now; go for the kill only when I know the defenders are loose," he says, adding that there are a lot of danger zones in kabaddi.

And escaping those is as much a part of their job profile as touching a rival. Anup says that hours, days and years of practice go into making survival an instinct. “If the defender is retreating too far behind, you know you have to be careful." A twitch of the muscle or an intent in the eye is the trigger for raiders to lunge towards the midline. They duck, leap and stretch to inch to safety.

“How does a bomb go?" asks Bhaskaran Edachery, U Mumba’s coach. “Boom!

“That’s the explosive strength that raiders need. Along with all the other skills, we also give them the neuro-muscular training to enhance reaction times." They are essentially escape artists who need to be as strong as a bull and as slippery as an eel.

Devadiga, whom Bhaskaran had scouted for the inaugural season of PKL, had pulled off one of the most memorable saves then. Memorable mostly for the absurdity of it. With the defenders grabbing at his T-shirt, he slipped through the shirt neck to dash past the midline.

“You do whatever it takes to get back to safety," says Devadiga, smiling. That attitude has seen him emerge as one of the most aggressive and consistent raiders in the league. With his team built on the riches of raiding talent, the Mumbai man is usually used for the third, do-or-die raid, and he has made it into somewhat of a speciality. “I treat every raid like do-or-die. My only goal is to return with points whenever I am sent in," he says.

In a matter of 40 minutes against the Jaipur Pink Panthers on Sunday, Devadiga carried out eight of the 11 successful raids. Mumbai beat Jaipur 35-21 to make it to their third successive semi-final in the league.

“Raiders like Rishank are special because no matter how many times he gets tackled, he will still go out and perform with the same confidence and vigour," says Bhaskaran.

The raiders will again be a star attraction as the third season of PKL winds down this weekend, with New Delhi hosting the finale on Saturday.

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Published: 02 Mar 2016, 09:28 PM IST
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