Players of Bihar march past chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi at the inauguration of the 26th Sub-junior National Kabaddi Championship at the Patliputra Sports Complex in Patna on Wednesday. Sixty and odd teams (girls and boys) have arrived for the tournament from Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Haryana and Goa. Instead of being organised at the indoor stadium, the matches will be held in the open because 60 and odd teams are taking part in the tournament this year. Janardhan Singh Gehlot, the president of International Kabaddi Federation, said: “As several teams are taking part in this year’s tournament, the federation has decided to organise the matches at the mud court. Only two matches can be held at a time at the indoor stadium.” In the first girls’ match on Wednesday, Bihar thrashed the Tripura team 77-9. Haryana defeated Delhi (29-21) and Uttar Pradesh defeated Vidarbha (32-15). In the boys’ category, Maharashtra defeated Goa 57-22. Boys of Uttar Pradesh defeated Odisha 44-10, while the Chhattisgarh team won over Andhra (48-8). Inaugurating the tournament, Manjhi said: “The Bihar government, in the past few years, has been continuously organising national and international tournaments for promotion of sports in the state. In the near future, too, more such tournaments will be organised here.” Bihar has been host to the Women’s Kabaddi World Cup in 2012. Patna was one of the venues of Pro Kabaddi Premier League too. Text by Roshan Kumar, picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey