23 Teams, 62 Matches, Nine Days: The Full Ledger of Kabaddi's First Commonwealth Championship in Ahmedabad

At 11 a.m. on Friday, at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad, the first match of the tournament is Kenya against Singapore — a men's Group B fixture. No Indian player will be on the mat. That small fact says the most honest thing about the inaugural Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship: the tournament is built around India, but it does not begin with India.

Seven hours later, at 6:45 p.m., Nidhi Sharma's Indian women's team plays Malaysia. At 8:30 p.m., Surjeet Singh's men's team takes on England. One evening, two Indian beginnings, two different slots — the women get the first part of the evening, the men the last. That is not a grievance, it is a schedule. But on this beat we read schedules too, because a schedule tells you who will be watched and when.

One correction first, because it is repeated at every major kabaddi tournament and it is the most checkable fact in the sport: kabaddi is not India's national game. No government notification has ever declared it so. What exists is more interesting — a sport that won medals at every Asian Games from 2026, that built a franchise league in 2026, and that has never been given constitutional status in its own country. This tournament runs on that contradiction.

My habit is fixed: at any multi-nation tournament I read the schedule first and the scoresheet later. The schedule tells you who carries what load, who got which rest days, and whose match was parked in prime time. The Ahmedabad schedule, as will become clear, says something the press release does not.

Context: the full nine-day map

The tournament runs October 23 to 31 — nine days, 23 teams, 13 nations, 62 matches in all. Of these, 39 are in the men's competition and 23 in the women's. It is organised by the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India with approval from the International Kabaddi Federation, and the city is simultaneously preparing to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games. This is not only a championship; it is an audition. More on that later.

The men's competition has 13 teams in two groups. Group A: India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Uganda, England, Tanzania and Sri Lanka — seven teams. Group B: Bangladesh, Kenya, Canada, Australia, Scotland and Singapore — six. India's 14-member squad is captained by Surjeet Singh, with Naveen Kumar as vice-captain, alongside Sachin Tanwar, Pankaj Mohite, Bharat Hooda, Shubham Shinde and Parvesh Bhainswal.

The women's competition has 10 teams in two groups of five. Group A: India, Singapore, Nigeria, Uganda, Malaysia. Group B: Bangladesh, Kenya, England, Scotland, Sri Lanka. Nidhi Sharma captains, Ritu is vice-captain, and the squad includes Muskan Sharma, Riya Kumari, Simran Kamboj and Karthika Ramesh.

India's men play England on October 23, Uganda on October 24, Malaysia on October 25, Nigeria on October 26, Tanzania on October 27 and Sri Lanka on October 29. The women play Malaysia on October 23, Singapore on October 24, Uganda on October 25 and Nigeria on October 26. Both semifinals are on October 30; both finals on October 31.

The arithmetic that closes — and the one that opens

The first thing I did with this schedule was add it up. A seven-team Group A gives 21 group matches (7×6/2); a six-team Group B gives 15. Add two semifinals and a final and you get 39 — exactly the number the federation published. In the women's draw, two groups of five give ten matches each, so 20, plus two semifinals and a final, makes 23. That closes too.

The spreadsheet said yes — and that matters, because it means there are no quarterfinals. Group stage, then straight to the semifinals. No team gets a second chance to repair a mistake in the knockout, and every group win is a direct step toward a semifinal place.

This is where the real story opens. The seven teams in Group A will each play six group matches; the six teams in Group B will each play five. India have six fixtures in the group stage; Bangladesh have five. That is not a difference of one match, it is a difference of taper. The team that comes out of Group A into the semifinal carries an extra match of fatigue, while a Group B side arrives on October 30 fresher. A twenty per cent load gap, immediately before the semifinals.

Now India's own ledger. If Surjeet Singh's side reaches the final — and expecting less from this squad would be unreasonable — it will play eight matches in nine days: October 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30 and 31. Only October 28 is blank. The women's team, by comparison, plays six if it reaches the final — four from October 23 to 26, then October 30 and 31. That is 33 per cent more load on the men's champion than the women's. It is part of the tournament's design, nobody's error, but it is the least discussed part of that design.

Fourteen players, eight matches, and the truth about rotation

Here I have to correct one of my own reflexes. The phrase load management makes me suspicious, because most of the time it is a euphemism for accommodating a commercial tour or a friendly, not for protecting a player. In Ahmedabad there is no such euphemism available. Here the number of matches is itself the pressure — eight matches in nine days, from a squad of 14, with seven on the mat.

That means India have six rotation players, and those six can only be used when the score permits it. Substitution in kabaddi is not as simple as in cricket — resting a raider means giving up raid points, and changing a defender means rebuilding the chemistry of the tackle unit. So the real question is not how many players India will use, but which match India will rotate in — Tanzania on October 27, the fifth match in five days, or Sri Lanka on October 29, the day before the semifinal?

My reading is October 27. There is a rest day on the 28th, and a coach would rather spend his fastest raider on day five and rest him on day six. But that reading holds only if October 25 and 26 are won early. If Malaysia or Nigeria drag India to the last raid, Naveen Kumar will have to stay on the mat on the 27th as well, and then the Sri Lanka fixture stops being semifinal preparation and becomes a fatigue calculation.

One more risk, and it sits with the young names

There are names in these squads who could see more game time this cycle — Pankaj Mohite, Shubham Shinde, and in the women's squad Karthika Ramesh and Muskan Sharma. Every time I see a list like that, I remember what I learned in 2026, when I spoke to more than forty players for a livelihood series: early-maturing young players are used first and rested last. Nine days, eight matches, and a young raider who wants two or three raids in every game — that is where good intentions can do damage.

Let me say it plainly: in this tournament, the load carried by any young player's body is, to my mind, more worth reporting than the trophy. If a 19- or 20-year-old is seen playing five matches in five days in Ahmedabad, that is the story — whatever the result.

The women's draw: two groups, two different worlds

The geography is visible in the women's draw. Group A puts India with Nigeria, Uganda, Malaysia and Singapore — an African and South-East Asian bloc. Group B has Bangladesh, Kenya, England, Scotland and Sri Lanka. For India this is a comfortable arrangement: four group matches, four different kinds of challenge, and three full days of rest (October 27–29) before the semifinal.

And here I have to reopen the ledger I open at every women's tournament. The Indian women's team has won Asian Games gold repeatedly — 2026, 2026, 2026 and 2026 — and those medals were earned against teams that are not in this draw. There is no alternative here, because Iran, Chinese Taipei and Korea are not Commonwealth nations.

A sport whose women keep winning gold has not one franchise to sell them. That is not my oldest complaint, it is my hardest fact. The men's competition has 39 matches; the women's has 23. Thirteen men's teams, ten women's teams. The gap is not scandalous — 23 matches is a genuine achievement for women's kabaddi across many countries — but somebody decided that gap.

Who is the co-favourite? Iran is not here

Now the part where I am stubborn in every preview. Whenever a preview of India is written on the Asian circuit, Iran appears in my first paragraph — as co-favourite, not as villain. That sentence cannot be written in Ahmedabad, because Iran are not in this field. Nor Korea, nor Chinese Taipei, nor Thailand, nor Japan.

So who takes the co-favourite tag? For me the answer is clear: Bangladesh. Group B in the men's draw is theirs — against Kenya, Canada, Australia, Scotland and Singapore they are plainly the strongest side. In the women's draw they look the strongest of Group B as well. Both finals could be India against Bangladesh, and if they are, that would be the best possible outcome for this tournament — because a genuine rivalry inside South Asia is worth more than competition imported from outside Iran.

Remember also that since 2026 the word "guarantee" has been deleted from my dictionary. In Jakarta I called India's 23-24 group-stage loss to South Korea "a blip" on a 2 a.m. live blog, and three days later Iran beat India 18-27 in the semifinal and ended a run of seven straight Games golds. After reading three hundred comments that night, I decided I would write the field, not the result.

So here is the field: India and Bangladesh in the men's draw, India and Bangladesh in the women's draw — with Kenya not to be taken lightly. I am not saying this because a scoresheet is in front of me; I am saying it because the three routes through this draw carry different kinds of difficulty.

"What would have to be true" — three lines

For India: at least four of the six Group A matches won by 20-plus points, so that rotation becomes possible on October 27.

For Bangladesh: five group matches instead of six, and therefore a fresher team in the semifinal. If they top Group B, they will arrive less tired than the side opposite them.

For India's women: three full rest days from October 27 to 29, while Group B sides wait out the same gap — so rest cancels out, and the semifinal is decided by squad depth rather than by the schedule.

The real test: 62 matches, nine days, and the shadow of 2030

Here I have to write the least-written truth on this beat. This tournament will be remembered for its operations more than its results. Ahmedabad is in the race to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games, and the first Commonwealth kabaddi championship is being staged in that same city. Sixty-two matches, nine days, one hall — that is an operational rehearsal.

I learned to read scores from a room rather than a stadium in my early years, from live-blog comment threads where people do not ask who won but why the match started late. Ahmedabad will be asked the same question. An 11 a.m. first match and an 8:30 p.m. last match — how many matches in between, how many mats, how much turnaround time? If 62 matches are to be cleared in nine days on a single mat, that is seven matches a day, and a kabaddi match is not shorter than forty minutes.

What is being misread from outside

First misreading: treating this as a world championship. It is not. A field of 13 nations looks large, but kabaddi's four strongest Asian powers — Iran, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand — are absent. A gold won here does not answer the Asian Games question, and anyone who treats it as an answer is repeating 2026.

Second misreading: assuming a women's gold will change the position of women in this sport. It will not, because the thing that needs changing is not on the mat but in the boardroom — no franchise, no television deal, and the same old 23-versus-39 ratio.

Third misreading, the most common: assuming this is easy for India. Six group matches in seven days, then a semifinal and a final, is not an easy schedule. The spreadsheet said yes; the WhatsApp group said wait, and this time the group is right.

What to watch next

October 27, against Tanzania, India's fifth match. If Surjeet Singh is seen using three or four of his seven bench options that day, the plan is working. If Naveen Kumar is still carrying a full raid load on day five, then the semifinal on October 30 will test his legs, not his skill.

And on October 31 I will file the women's final first, as I always do, whatever the order on the ground. The beat is not the match; it is who keeps the receipt. This time the receipt is with Ahmedabad, and the only question left is this: when the accounts of 62 matches are settled nine days from now, will they read as well for those ten women's teams as for the thirteen men's teams?