India scored 37 against Iran twice this week, and the second time it won kabaddi gold by three
India’s women held off an Iran fightback to win the Asian Games kabaddi final 37-34 and keep the title they won in Hangzhou.
Sep 26, 2026
India’s women scored 37 points against Iran in the Asian Games group stage on Wednesday and won by 14. They scored 37 again in Saturday’s final, and this time it was enough by three. The 37-34 win at the Tokai Citizens Gymnasium in Aichi keeps the gold India won in Hangzhou and makes it four titles from the five women’s kabaddi tournaments held at the Games.
The fifth, in Jakarta in 2018, was Iran’s. That was the defeat this team had spent eight years carrying, and Iran came much closer to repeating it than the group game suggested they would.
A six-point lead at the break
The opening minutes were tight. Iran stopped Sanju Devi with a Super Tackle at 5-5, and the score was level again at 7-7. India’s first real gap came from the first All-Out of the match, started by a Bhavna Devi tackle, which made it 13-10.
India kept adding to it and went in 22-16 up, which in a kabaddi final is a solid lead and nothing more.
Iran got to within one
The second half was where Iran’s raiders found their way in. Aynaz Faramarzi and Saniya Naeimi led the raiding, and Iran scored 18 points in the half to India’s 15.
India did have one big moment. Down to two players on the mat, they needed a tackle, and Ritu Negi, the captain in Hangzhou, got it with a thigh hold on Naeimi. The Super Tackle made it 25-20. It did not hold. Atena Madadi took two touch points from one raid to finish off India’s remaining players, and the All-Out cut the gap to 27-26 with eight minutes to go.
That was as close as Iran came to repeating Jakarta. Sanju Devi’s Super Raid pushed India clear again, and Pushpa Rana, captaining the side at her first Games in charge, sealed the All-Out that followed. With about a minute left Iran still needed points to stay alive, and India’s defence caught Aynaz to end it.
Rana wants kabaddi at the Olympics
“We never thought we might lose; our plan was to fight right till the end and win,” Rana said afterwards.
She was just as direct about the pressure of being the favourite. “Kabaddi has mostly brought gold, so the pressure of that thing is always there,” she said. “And all the Indians hoped that we would bring gold.”
She also used the moment to make a case. “Iran is a very good team. They have produced some strong matches against us. Chinese Taipei is also doing very well,” she said. “We want Kabaddi to grow very well in all the countries so that Kabaddi can come to the Commonwealth Games and Olympics in the future.”
She wants a bigger stage at home too, saying women “should get the same platform that the boys have got for Pro Kabaddi”.
The men beat Iran 40-34 in their final that afternoon, so India won both kabaddi golds in Aichi, as they did in Hangzhou. Iran go home with two silvers and a women’s team that turned a 14-point group defeat into a three-point final in the space of three days.