10-team Pak Super Kabaddi League begins today

LAHORE: The first-ever franchised-based 10-team Pakistan’s Super Kabaddi League will kick start here at the Gymnasium Hall of the Sports Board Punjab on Wednesday (today).

The formal opening ceremony of the league took place on Tuesday here at Alhamra Cultural Complex. The owners of all the 10 teams, players and officials of the Pakistan Kabaddi Federation were also present on the occasion.

Former film actress-cum-director/producer Reema and Khalid Malik were the chief guest of the opening ceremony. Nabeel Shaukat, Saira Raza, Bakhshi Brothers and several other well-known artists performed during the ceremony.

During their performances the Super Kabaddi League trophy was also unveiled. According to the Secretary of Kabbadi Federation, Muhammad Sarwar, a total of 16 international players from seven countries namely Sri Lanka, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh and Kenya and 116 national players are taking part in the league.

Revolving around very basic skills, the game is played by two teams of seven, in which a ‘raider’ enters the other half of the court to tag or wrestle opponents before returning ‘home’ while holding his breath and chanting ‘kabaddi, kabaddi’.

In the recently concluded Kabaddi World Cup in Australia, the Pakistan team failed to even enter the semi-finals as Australia went all the way and clinched the title.Four matches will be played daily among the teams divided into two pools of five teams each. On the opening day two matches of pool A and two of pool B will be played in which Gujrat will take on Gawadar and Lahore vs Sahiwal while Islamabad meet Peshawar and Faisalabad face Kashmir.

Teams: LAHORE: Mudassir Shah, M Sufyan, Ahsan Mahmood, Atif Sohail, M Afzal, M Ali, M Mujahid, M Abid, Mazhar Iqbal, M Jalamaderah.

ISLAMABAD: M. Rizwan, M. Arshad, Zahid Nawaz, Hassan Raza, M Shahid Iqbal, M Zeeshan, Faisal Nadeem, Asif Jajja, Zain Ali, Farhad Naghi

KARACHI: M. Nadeem , Wajid Ali, M Mushahid, Abdul Manan, M Saleem, Shair Ahmed, Abbas Ali, Saif-ul-Malook, Adeel Azam, Masood Karim

GWADAR: Abrar Hussain , Ali Shan, Waqar Aslam, Rehman Ali, Adil Hussain, Shoaib Mumtaz, Ijaz Masih, Bilal Khan, Shahbaz Ali, APG Malinda

PESHAWAR: Akhlaq Hussain , Usman Zada, Qaiser Abbas, Subhan Aslam, Usman Khalid, M Yousuf, M Yasin, Abdul Rahman, Imran Ali, Milad Sherhak

MULTAN: Waseem Sajjad, Arslan Ahmed, Sabir Ali, Abdul Mukhtar, Waqas Hussain, Junaid Sarwar, M Aqeel, M Mustafa Bijli, Amjad Ali, Jabaer Himati

SAHIWAL: M Nasir, Sajjad Shaukat, Waqas Ali, Hassan Ali, Amir Mehmood, Afzal Ali, M Faizan Riaz, Abid Hussain, Rafique, Sabuj

KASHMIR: Kashif Razzak, Atif Waheed, Saddam Hussain, uzammil Hussain, Sajjad Ahmad, Asim Hanif, Tarir Munir, Tauheed Shafa, Sheram Ali, Mugilian Batumlai

FAISALABAD: Nasir Ali, Abrar Khan, Azam Shah, Haider Ali, Rashid Mahboob, Sharafat Ali, Abid Hussain, Ahmed, Wasim Akram, Raindu Chamara

GUJRAT: M Imran, Tehseenullah, Waqar Ali, Dildar Ahmed, M Traiq, Rai Mubashir Ali, Asad Ali, Sabirullah, Saifullah, M Baba Ali

Match schedule:

May 2: Gujrat vs Gawadar, Lahore vs Sahiwal, Islamabad vs Peshawar, Faisalabad vs Kashmir.

May 3: Gujrat vs Lahore, Sahiwal vs Karachi, Islamabad vs Faisalabad, Kashmir Multan

May4: Gawadar vs Lahore, Gujrat vs Karachi, Peshawar vs Faisalabad, IOslamabad vs Multan

May 5: Gujrat vs Sahiwal, Gwadar vs Karachi, Islamabad vs Kashmir, Peshawar vs Multan

May 6: Gwadar vs Sahiwal, Lahore Karachi, Peshawar vs Kashmir, Faisalabad vs Multan

May 7: Pool eliminators: Rank 4 vs rank 5 of booth pools

May 8: Knock outs: Team 1 A vs Team 4 B, Team 1 B vs Team 4 A, Team 2 A vs team 3 B, Team 2 B vs Team 3 A

May 9: Winner Q! vs Q4, Winner Q2 vs Q3

May 10: Final.