Kabaddi World Cup rescheduled, to be held in February

KARACHI: Bad weather has forced forced the organisers to reschedule the Kabaddi World Cup (circle style) which Pakistan is going to host.

The event will now be held from February 9-16. Earlier, it was pencilled in for January 12-19 at three different venues of Punjab. “Because of the poor weather and heavy fog we have rescheduled the event,” Pakistan Kabaddi Federation’s (PKF) secretary Mohammad Sarwar told ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

Soon after having a chat with ‘The News’, PKF also issued a press release which said: “It is very regretfully informed that organising committee of World Kabaddi Cup 2020 has decided to change the dates of the event from January 12-19 2020 to February 9-16, 2020, due to bad weather condition at Lahore.

“According to weather forecast heavy fog, severe cold waves and rains are expected during the competition dates,” the federation said. This is the first time that Pakistan will be hosting the world showpiece.

India is also among ten nations expected to be part of the event. “India has already showed its willingness and will be part of the competitions. Its visa process has begun,” said Sarwar, also secretary of Asian Kabaddi Federation (AKF).

The other teams are Canada, the United States, Australia, England, Iran, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Azerbaijan. The competitions will be held in Lahore, Faisalabad and Nankana Sahib. Both the opening and closing ceremonies will be held at Lahore’s Punjab Stadium.

The ten nations will be bracketed in two groups with the leading two sides from each pool qualifying for the semi-finals. The organisers were expected to unveil its official logo on December 25 but had to decide against that because of the bad weather.

However, Sarwar was hopeful that in February weather would be much better. “You know our main timing is afternoon till night and in this extreme cold weather it was not possible to hold the competitions. You know fog is there and we could have faced flight issues. We were forced to go for rescheduling,” said Sarwar, also a former Pakistan captain.

The hosts team camp is in progress at the Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad. “Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is sponsoring the camp,” Sarwar said. Coaches Fayyaz Ali, Tahir Waheed and Shehzad Hanif are supervising the camp.