No Pawan Sehrawat, No 12 Gold Medalists: The Real Story Behind India's Commonwealth Kabaddi Squad Selection

One evening last October, the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI) announced a 17-member probable squad for the Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship 2026. I scanned the headline looking for one name. Pawan Sehrawat was not there. Then I looked closer at the list — not a single one of the 12 players who won gold at the Asian Games 2026 was on it. That was the jolt. Sitting at grounds in Bangladesh, I have seen many times how one missing name rewrites an entire tournament's story. That evening, the old habit from my Mymensingh blog returned — whatever the headline claims, I look for the other side of it. That blog had no readers, but it had a verdict I could not shake.

Let me set the context. The Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship 2026 is an entirely new event — its inaugural edition. October 21 to 31, in Ahmedabad. Fourteen Commonwealth nations will take part. The sport will be played in Standard Style — the rectangular-court international version used at the Asian Games and in the Pro Kabaddi League, not the circular rural Punjab style. The rules are familiar: a 30-second raid, the raider must chant kabaddi continuously, and if the cant breaks the raid is void. One point for crossing the bonus line, but only when the defending side has six or more players on court. Two points and a full revival for an All Out. After two consecutive empty raids, the do-or-die raid — if the raider scores nothing, he himself is out.

This article is not about on-court rules but about selection politics. Yet the rules matter, because one thing must be clear: what happens in Ahmedabad is Standard Style, not circle. Anyone who confuses this event with rural kabaddi will take the whole analysis into the wrong column.

The biggest question — what does this squad actually mean? The first reading is easy: India is testing its depth. No gold medalist from the Asian Games means this is not a best eleven, it is a rotation squad. The report offers two explanations — that plenty of capable players deserve a chance, and that existing internationals need rest. Both are reasonable, but both are the author's opinion, not AKFI's official explanation. That is the first gap.

The real signal is the depth of India's pipeline. A probable squad with none of the country's current gold-winning generation suggests a very large domestic supply. But the question now is whether this depth is genuinely kabaddi's, or a coincidence of the calendar. If the Asian Games finished close to the Commonwealth window, the recovery gap for elite raiders who absorb heavy physical load is narrow. That is a tactical argument for rotation, not mere kindness.

Now that number must be read with suspicion. Fourteen Commonwealth nations is eye-catching, but kabaddi is not widely played across the Commonwealth. In reality most participants are likely South Asian Commonwealth members — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore — plus diaspora-heavy nations such as England, Australia and Canada. The genuine competitiveness behind the number is unverified, probably shallow.

And the biggest unknown: Iran. In Standard Style, Iran is India's only genuine challenger. If Iran takes part, this event becomes a meaningful test; if not, it is effectively a diaspora exhibition. The report never confirms Iran's participation. That is the most important open question.

Notice the Commonwealth framing. By branding a largely Indian sport as a Commonwealth championship, the organizers present kabaddi as an internationally shared sport. It is soft-power packaging. The claim that the event's success could help shape kabaddi's future at the Commonwealth Games is the strategic core — meaning this is a lobbying and visibility vehicle, not an established prestige event. By not sending a full-strength side, India itself signals that the event's prestige tier remains low.

So where is the mirage? Here the mirage is the claim of internationalism in the fourteen nations. In Mymensingh I once found the mirage before I found the semifinal — that experience taught me that the grander the glamour from a distance, the thinner the substance up close. If that claim collapses, the event keeps its beauty but loses its substance.

Let me look outward for comparison. Writing about Denmark's 3-4-3 at Euro 2026, I argued the fairy tale was not Denmark winning but Denmark making grief tactical. A similar reading is possible here: the Commonwealth Kabaddi fairy tale is not India winning but a strategy of exporting a code under a different name. The Denmark story is one comparative case, nothing more — but the pattern is familiar: an institution builds an event, then manufactures meaning around it.

I could be wrong. Perhaps Sehrawat's omission is not routine rotation but a specific decision, a message. If Sehrawat was not among the Asian Games twelve, his omission is a separate and more notable selection story. If he was, the rotation policy explains everything. The report does not answer this — and that is the single biggest ambiguity here. The headline pulls toward star-dropped, which makes the story more dramatic but probably less true.

One more thing to keep in mind: what we call a scandal may simply be administrative silence. AKFI announced no selection criteria. Without criteria, the question of why Sehrawat was dropped is inevitable. This is not corruption but opacity — a weakness that can be fixed at low cost. And AKFI's administrative history is already controversial — election disputes, past derecognition episodes. In that context, the lack of transparency matters more.

And the 17 players I am writing about must not be forgotten. Most of India's elite kabaddi players come from rural, low-income backgrounds. A national camp call-up — even to a B-team camp — carries real income and prestige value for them. My criticism targets the federation's opacity, not the players. Capable players deserve a chance sounds good, but the report names no one and cites no numbers. So the sympathy is evidentially empty.

Now my forecast. India will remain favourite at this tournament, even with this rotated side — its structural dominance in the code is too large. But the headline will be Sehrawat's absence, and whatever the on-field result, the story will stay personality-led at first. My real interest is not this event — it is whether kabaddi genuinely earns a place on the Commonwealth Games pathway. If it does not, this week in Ahmedabad will remain a branding statement, never becoming genuine competition.

One last thought. The headline sells the star, while the squad drops the star. That contradiction is the real message of this news — and perhaps of kabaddi's own position.