Indian Kabaddi News: New panel of coaches announced for India men's and women's teams

What's the story?

The Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India announced a new panel of coaches for the men's and women's kabaddi teams on Friday. The men's coaching panel will consist of the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup-winning coach Balwan Singh, former Asian Games gold medallist Ashan Kumar and Sports Authority of India coach Jaivir Sharma.

The coaching staff of the women's team will consist of Dronacharya Award-winning coach Sunil Dabas, former Iran women's team coach Shailja Jain and the assistant coach Banani Saha.

The background

AKFI had invited the candidates to apply for the vacant positions of the coaches in the Indian men's and women's kabaddi teams on October 15. The federation received 29 (20 men+ 9 women) applications for the same.

They scrutinized all the applications closely before announcing the new panels on 25th October.

The heart of the matter

PDF uploaded by AKFI on indiankabaddi.org

As mentioned in the public notice issued by AKFI, the men's and the women's teams have received three new coaches each.

Among the men's coaches, Balwan Singh had led the Indian team to gold medals at the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games, besides guiding the team to the Kabaddi World Cup in 2016. He has even coached the Jaipur Pink Panthers in the Pro Kabaddi League. Ashan Kumar is an Arjuna Award winner while Jaivir Sharma has immense coaching experience having worked as a coach at SAI Gandhinagar.

The women's coaching panel features Padma Shri recipient Sunil Dabas and former international coaches Shailja Jain and Banani Saha.

What's next?

With the men's Kabaddi World Cup set to take place in the first half of 2020, Balwan Singh and Co. will have to work hard to ensure that the team performs better than what it did at the previous edition of the Asian Games.