Understanding Kabaddi : Video referral- How and when to take it

As technology evolved, all sports are taking advantage of it to make the human errors as low as possible and to make the game more interesting. In an extremely physical game like Kabaddi, video replays and video referrals can be very valuable as the referees even though has multiple angles to see, can make an error in judgement very easily. This was evident in some games and hence the Pro kabaddi management decided it was time to start using Video referrals from last season.

So the rules of video referral are each team has one referral if they use it successfully and overturns the field referee’s decision, they get to keep their review and if they can’t they lose it.

How to use the video referral intelligently to the team’s advantage

As you see in Cricket, team India does very well with DRS as Dhoni has a good game knowledge. So it is necessary to have a very good understanding of the game to take a successful review just like in Cricket. First rule in taking the video referral is that never let the player who is involved take a decision, as he might be hot headed or just angry at the referee for a wrong decision, making for an error in judgement, only the captain or senior most player should decide whether to go for the review or not and must have a good view of the situation. If unsure, its better to leave it alone.

Also, never take a review for a bonus point, this is one mistake seen in the last season as most of the captains sure of their raiders go for referral of bonus point only to loose their review sometimes in the first half leaving them without any option in the crucial second half. Especially in do or die raids where it is very important to get the point, bonus can be a risky option. 

The best time to take the review will be when the player and captain both had a good look and both believe that they need a review or in a multi-point situation or if its an important match during the second half. One review can change the entire scenario!!