Raju Bhavsar on the twist in Indian sports due to Pro Kabaddi League

Team Udayavani, Jul 29, 2020, 11:51 AM IST

The professional-level kabaddi league in India had a huge impact on Indian sports. Raju Bhavsar, who played for the national kabaddi team for almost a decade is an expert in this field.

Although cricket is without any doubt the most popular sport in India, kabaddi had captured the attention of sport fans thanks to the Pro Kabaddi League. Since the first League in 2014, the numbers increased to 316 million views and impressions. Another indicator of its popularity is the growth of betting on kabaddi matches. The question is, can it ever reach the status of cricket? Betting on cricket is so popular in India that even online casinos name their brands after cricket, like 10cric. In this example, the brand offers much more than just sports betting. but they chose to go with a cricket focused brand name exactly due to the high popularity of the sport, not only in India but worldwide.

Being an expert on kabaddi, Bhavsar is the right person to talk about both the present and the future of this sport. Even though he stopped actively playing kabaddi, it seems that his life still revolves around this exciting sport. Bhavsar became a member of the international development committee of the Asian Kabaddi Federation and is also proud of his position as the technical supervisor of the league administration at PKL season 6.

It turned out that the winner of numerous Gold medals at international tournaments, has amazing coaching skills and by using them he contributed to excellent results for Air India team. Bhavsar knew this was the right path for him, even though his parents expected academic success. According to this talented man, injuries are a normal part of kabaddi, but in his career, they weren’t so serious.

The key moment for kabaddi in India was the telecasting of Pro Kabaddi League on TV. Bhavsar claims that this changed the entire dimension of kabaddi. He followed each step of the organization, trained commentators, anchors, technical crew, and did everything that was in his power to raise this sport to a higher level. Even though it was challenging for him, it was an honour to be involved in India’s premium sports channel star sports. Now that more people have a chance to learn about kabaddi, his status can only go up and up.

Raju is using social media to promote kabaddi outside his country, but he’s definitely the person who has a lot of credit when it comes to kabaddi popularity in India. He’s a member of the “Athletes Commission” of Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India. After analyzing the current lineup in the Indian team, he concluded that Pawan Sehrawat has a similar style as himself, and he also predicts a bright future for Anup Kumar and Ajay Thakur.

In his review of a current Indian Men’s team, Raju stated that Iran and Korea are their stiffest opponents. He believes that the Indian team can win the 2022 Asian Games Championship because of the talented players like Pawan Sehrawat, Navin Kumar, Pradeep Narwal and Siddharth Desai. When it comes to defenders, he believes in Nitesh Kumar, Sunil & Parvesh. Raju’s optimism and his dedication to this sport are outstanding.