Korea produced an excellent performance as they defeated tournament favorites India, in the process by 34-32, in the first match of Kabaddi World Cup 2016 held at Ahmedabad, Gujarat on Friday evening. India dominated the game in the first 30 minutes but Korea made a brilliant comeback into the match in the last 10 minutes to cause a huge upset.
South Korea won the toss and elected to choose a court. In the first raid, Anup Kumar and Deon was captured. The next two raids of each team went empty. Rahul Chaudhary was captured in the 4th raid to give Korea lead. Anup Kumar got the first super raid of Kabaddi World Cup 2016 and gave India the lead for the first time. The Korean defense was strong as they captured Jasvir Singh and was awarded super tackle. Anup Kumar gave the India the lead by all out the Korean team. India led 12-9. The Korean defense was strong but their raiders could not put pressure on the Indian players. At the end of first half, India led 18-13.
In the second half , Korea got the first point as Rahul Chaudhary went without touching and into the lobby. Anup gets a point in the next raid to give India 19-15 lead. Jung-Kun Lee was captured and India got a super tackle to give India 21-15 lead. India dominated the things and with 13 minutes to go India were leading 23-15 before Korea made a brilliant comeback. In the last 3 minutes, Korea went all-out on India and reduced the gap to 25-28 in favor of India. In the last minute, India and South Korea were equal at 30-30 and South Korea produced two points. The final scoreline of the first match was 34-32 in favour of South Korea.
India’s next match in the World Cup is against Australia on Saturday.