It’s a rainy afternoon at the Dharavi Sports Complex and a group of hijab-clad kabaddi players are warming up for a practice game against a local team.
The mood is light-hearted before head coach Shailaja Jain commands the attention of the room. Mrs. Jain — as the team calls her — spells out her instructions in Farsi. A seasoned coach from Nashik, Shailaja has been working with this Iran women’s team for the last seven years, and was at the helm of the side when it beat India to win gold at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.
India and Iran are fierce rivals in the world of kabaddi, both in the men’s and women’s variants. In the men’s game, Ashan Kumar, who is now the Indian head coach, played an important role in helping the Iranians win silver at the Guangzhou Asiad in 2010. K.C. Suthar, another veteran Indian coach, was at the helm when Iran finished behind India in the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup in Ahmedabad.
