How Jharkhand women's team made it to semis of Kabaddi senior national for the first time

In the 67th Senior Nationals Championship which is held at Poornima University, Jaipur, we witnessed so many emerging players and their magnificent performances. In the women section, the Jharkhand team's performance was one of the highlights.

First time in the history of Senior Nationals Kabaddi Championship, the Jharkhand team qualified for the semi-finals. Even though they couldn't enter into the finals, their performance was remarkable.

In the group-wise matches, Jharkhand was in group B, with Haryana and Gujarat.

Click here to see the group standings

In the first match, Jharkhand beat Gujarat with score 38-21. Jharkhand maintained their lead throughout the match. In the first half, they scored 18 points against Gujarat's 6 points and in the second half, they scored 20 points whereas Gujarat could score only 15 points. Jharkhand's total of 38 points includes 16 raid points, 18 tackle points, and 4 all-out points. Varsha and Poonam bagged 8 points each and contributed to the win of Jharkhand.

Click here to see the full match center of Jharkhand v/s Gujarat

In the second league match, which was against Haryana, Jharkhand couldn't continue their winning journey. Jharkhand lost the match against Haryana with a score of 23-29. Poonam, who was on the mat throughout the match, scored 6 points for Jharkhand, but couldn't help the team to win the match.

Click here to see the full match center of Jharkhand v/s Haryana

Out of 2 matches in the league, Jharkhand won 1 match and grabbed the runner up position in the group as Gujarat lost both the matches in the league. This led Jharkhand their way to the Pre-Quarters.

Click here to see the group standings

In the Pre-quarter final, Jharkhand's opponent was Uttar Pradesh. Jharkhand did show a wonderful start and scored 18 points in the first half where the scores were 18-9. With the powerful defense, Jharkhand beat Uttar Pradesh in the match with a score of 33-27. Jharkhand team scored 15 tackle points and 16 raid points in the match. Akshima scored 13 points in the match for Jharkhand and became the top scorer of the match, and led the team to Quarterfinals.

Click here to see the full match center of Jharkhand v/s Uttar Pradesh

In Quarterfinal, Jharkhand faced Bihar for the first time in this tournament. The match was pretty exciting. Bihar did perform well in the first half and bought a lead of 4 points, where the scores where 11-15, in favour of Bihar. But Bihar couldn't enjoy the joy longer. In the second half, Jharkhand did a wonderful come back and scored 15 points where Bihar could score only 6 points. Once again Akshima did a wonderful job with 9 points and Jharkhand won the match with a score of 26-21.

Click here to see full match center of Jharkhand v/s Bihar

These powerful performances helped Jharkhand to enter into the Semifinals for the first time in the history of Senior Nationals. Jharkhand women astonished everybody who would have predicted the playoff qualifiers for the tournament. 

In the Semifinals, Jharkhand lost to Indian Railways with a score of 18-39. Akshima did score 7 points for Jharkhand in the match but it couldn't help the team.

Click here to see full match center of Jharkhand v/s Indian Railways

Even though Jharkhand lost in Semis, their journey in the 67th Senior Nationals will be remembered by all Kabaddi lovers. The Jharkhand women team made their state proud by writing a new history in Senior Nationals.

Let's have a look at the top performers of the Jharkhand women team.

Akshima: 35 raid points from 5 matches (At #12 in the overall player ranking in raiders in the tournament)

Poonam: 20 tackle points from 5 matches (At #7 in the overall player ranking in defenders in the tournament)

The performance in 67th Senior Nationals, helped Akshima and Priyanka to register her name in the Indian Camp list.

Click here to see the complete list of players who got selected for Indian Camp

The masters behind the team:

Nevertheless, coach Teznarayan's and fitness trainer Anand Yadav's months-long training regime helped the team to achieve this success.