Asian Kabaddi Championships 2017: 5 reasons why India might not win the competition

Modified Nov 22, 2017 16:30 IST

With a lot of star players missing out, it remains to see how the Indian team will do under newly appointed skipper Ajay Thakur

#3 Stiff competition from Iran

The Iranian team in action against Kenya in the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup

One of the biggest success stories for the Gujarat Fortunegiants in the Pro Kabaddi League was the chemistry between the Iranian corners Abozar Mighani and Fazel Athrachali and come the Championships, the two men will yet again join hands albeit this time for Iran and their tackles, dashes will be hard to evade.

Apart from this, the team also boasts of quality all-rounders Meraj Sheykh, who excelled for Dabang Delhi and Farhad Milagardhan, who showed good skill during his stint with the Titans.

The raiding department will be led by the lanky raider in Abolfazl Maghsoudlou, who will be assisted by the agile Mohsen Maghsoudlou. To make matters better for Iran, all of their men were instrumental in their contributions to their PKL teams which will hold them in good stead and prove to be a major competition to front-runners, India.

They came extremely close to defeating India at the Asian Games in 2014 and even in the World Cup last year, the final was quite evenly contested between the two teams.

Edited by Shraishth Jain