Asian Kabaddi Championship 2023: India team squad announced

India has named a strong Kabaddi team for the upcoming Asia Kabaddi Championships 2023. The tournament, which will be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, will begin in the last week of June. 

The Star Raiders Naveen Kumar and Pawan Sehrawat will lead the Indian team at the prestigious event this year. The 12-member team consist of some of the in-form PKL stars. To everyone's shock, the team will miss out on a couple of big names too. One of them is Pardeep Narwal. The all-time leading raider in the Pro Kabaddi League has missed the cut for the upcoming tournament. Another major miss is Deepak Niwas Hooda. The former captain of the Indian Kabaddi Team couldn't find a place in the final 12. 

Some of the other famous names who couldn't make it to the final 12 are Surender Nada, Maninder Singh, Mahender Singh, Surender Gill, and Girish Maruti Ernak, amongst others. 

The selection for the team happened through the trials which took place at the Patliputra Sports Complex in Patna, Bihar earlier in May. 

Talking about the Indian team, Pawan Sehrawat is back to the professional Kabaddi. He is returning from an injury that sidelined him from Pro Kabaddi League last year. The star raider was picked up by Tamil Thalaivas in the 9th edition auction. The franchise grabbed for a whopping Rs 2.2 crores, making him the most expensive player in the history of the Pro Kabaddi League. Unfortunately, Pawan Sehrawat was ruled out of the edition after picking up an injury. 

As he is back to the professional setup, all eyes will be on the star raider.

He will be accompanied by Naveen Kumar and Arjun Deshwal. Notably, Arjun Deshwal was the top raider in the recently concluded PKL season 9. His addition to the Indian team certainly improves our chance of defending the title. 

The veteran defender Surjeet Singh and Nitesh Kumar will lead our defence. They will be supported by defenders Sunil Kumar, Vishal Bhardwaj and Parvesh Bhainswal. The all-rounder Nitin Rawal has found a place in the final 12 as well. 

Ashan Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar have been named as the coaches for the Indian Kabaddi team, while former national coach Bhaskaran Edachery has been named as the team manager. 

India Kabaddi Team for the upcoming Asia Kabaddi Championships 2023

Indian kabaddi team: Arjun Deshwal, Naveen Kumar, Sachin, Aslam Inamdar, Mohit Goyat, Sunil Kumar, Parvesh Bhainswal, Nitin Rawal, Nitesh Kumar, Surjeet Singh, Vishal Bhardwaj, Pawan Sehrawat. 
Stand-by players: Vijay Malik, Shubham Shinde
Coaches: Ashan Kumar, Sanjeev Kumar
Manager: Bhaskaran Edachery

India's record in Asia Kabaddi Championships
The Indian Kabaddi Team are the current champions of the Asia Kabaddi Championship. The last edition of the tournament took place in 2017 in Gorgan Iran. India went on to defeat their arch-rivals Pakistan in the final of the tournament to lift the title. 

In fact, the current champions are the most successful side in the history of Asia Kabaddi Championships. 

The team has won seven gold medals out of their eight editions so far. 

The first edition was held in 1980 in Kolkata which India won convincingly. Since then, they went on to win the following four editions of the tournament. However, in 2003, India couldn't make it to the top three. The tournament, which took place in Kangar, Malaysia saw Iran lifting the Gold medal. However, India came back stronger in 2005 to win back the gold. The tournament did not take place until 2017. 

India went on to win that edition as well. It will be interesting to see if any team will stop the current champions, who are clearly the favourites to win the trophy.