India’s Asian Games 2026 kabaddi camp: the probables, the final 12 and the gold

Update, October 2026: India took 12 men to Japan, not 14, and the squad named in August left out Naveen Kumar and Bharat Hooda. Sunil Kumar was made captain. India won all six of their matches at the Tokai Citizens Gymnasium, beat Thailand 66-28 in the semi-final and then beat Iran 40-34 in the final on 26 September, after trailing 17-18 at half-time. It was India’s ninth gold in the ten men’s tournaments held since 1990, and the women won theirs on the same day. The April camp report follows, with our selection guesswork set against what happened.

India’s kabaddi preparation for the 2026 Asian Games moved out of the rhetoric stage and into the gym this spring. The Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India and Mashal Sports ran a high-performance strength and conditioning camp at the Inspire Institute of Sport in Bellary, scheduled from 27 March to 2 April, with about 45 probables in each of the men’s and women’s groups. The men’s list read like a Pro Kabaddi League Team of the Season.

Naveen Kumar was there. Ashu Malik was there. Arjun Deshwal, Pawan Sehrawat, Aslam Inamdar, Sunil Kumar and Bharat Hooda were all in the room. Only 12 men would go to Japan, which meant several of the biggest names in Indian kabaddi were going to watch the final list come out with the knot in the stomach that any probable feels when the selector’s pen comes out.

A selection headache that did not exist three years ago

The depth on offer is what made this cycle different. Three years ago, India’s Asian Games raiding unit more or less picked itself around Pawan and Naveen. This time the conversation included Deshwal, who now captains Tamil Thalaivas after his title-winning years at Jaipur Pink Panthers, and Inamdar, who has built himself into one of the most well-rounded raiders in the league at Puneri Paltan. Malik captained Dabang Delhi to the PKL 12 title in 2025, beating Puneri in the final.

The selectors could only take so many raiders and so many defenders. Indian kabaddi has been spoiled for choice for the last half decade, but it had never been this tight at the top. That is why the camp mattered more than the usual fitness drive. It was essentially a trial in a tracksuit.

What Ashu Malik took from the camp

Speaking to WION at the end of April, Malik said the thing he valued was learning from the 40-plus elite players around him, and he described the relationship with seniors such as Pawan and Naveen as collaborative rather than a pecking order: “We learn from each other. Sometimes I ask them questions, sometimes they ask me.”

He also named Iran as India’s toughest opponents, because the two sides know each other so well. That read turned out to be right. India’s smallest winning margin in Japan was the six points of the final against Iran.

What we expected, and what happened

In April we thought India would take a captain-raider (Malik or Naveen, more likely Malik), a raider who could do both sides of the job (Inamdar), a senior defender to lead the line (Sunil Kumar) and a cover defender who could hold an end alone late in a half (Hooda or Jaideep Dahiya).

Half of that held. Sunil Kumar led the defence and, against our guess, the team as captain. Inamdar went as an all-rounder alongside Pawan, and Jaideep Dahiya made the squad. Naveen and Hooda did not. The raiding places went to Malik, Deshwal and the top two raiders of PKL 12, Ayan Lohchab and Devank Dalal, with six defenders behind them.

The squad worked. India won their four group games by 16 points or more, and in the final it was Sumit Sangwan and Jaideep whose Super Tackle on Ali Samadi started the second-half turnaround. The full medal-winning 12: Sunil Kumar (captain), Ashu Malik, Ayan Lohchab, Devank Dalal, Arjun Deshwal, Pawan Sehrawat, Aslam Inamdar, Jaideep Dahiya, Rahul Sethpal, Gaurav Khatri, Sumit Sangwan and Ankit Jaglan.

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