Watch: India Kabaddi Team's WILD Celebration After Winning Gold At Asian Games 2023 Following Pawan Sehrawat Review Controversy

It was a final with full of controversy, tension and a lot of heat between the players, coaches and even the officials. However, in the end, India clinched gold which was also their 28th gold medal after the Kabaddi team defeated arch-rivals Iran in the finale at Hangzhou, China. The Indian Kabaddi Team won the final by 33-29 against Iran clinching their 8th gold in Games history. The players celebrated wildly as soon as the decision came out that they have beaten Iran.

Watch the video here:

After the 3-1 or 1-1 points controversy drama , India clinches gold in #Kabaddi at the #AsianGames23 .

India took tha revenge of 2018 defeat in style pic.twitter.com/PpCT0osiDT  Ankit  (@Imankit6908) October 7, 2023

In a shocking turn of events, the match was stopped for almost one hour following a controversy related to Pawan Sehrawat's do or die raid.

This is worse than anything I've seen from VAR in Premier league#AsianGames #Kabaddipic.twitter.com/LL2CXuN5Qu

 Aashish Shukla (@Aashish_Shukla7) October 7, 2023

What exactly happened?

With just one minute left, Indian player Pawan Sehrawat was forced to make a do-or-death raid. Pawan went out of bounds without making contact with any Iranian defenders. In response to that, Amirhossein Bastami and three other Iranian defenders reacted by advancing on Pawan and attempting to shove him aside. There was some uncertainty as to whether Pawan had been successfully handled at this point.

As three Iranian players entered the lobby, Pawan thought he should receive more than the referee's one point per team reward. After more than seven minutes of deliberation, the officials decided to award India three points and Iran one point after the Indians requested a video review.

 

“If a defender or defenders who has / have touched the ground outside the boundary (as per rule 5), hold a raider, the raider will be declared NOT OUT. The defender or defenders who have gone out of bounds only will be declared out.” is what the rules from International Kabaddi rulebook says.