Kho-Kho World Cup 2025: India's great start, defeated Nepal in the very first match

Kho-Kho World Cup 2025: India's great start, defeated Nepal in the very first match

Kho-Kho World Cup 2025 In the first match of the Kho-Kho World Cup, the Indian men's team defeated Nepal 42-37 and made a great start to the tournament. Kho-Kho World Cup 2025 was inaugurated on Monday at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in the capital. On this historic occasion, the program started with the national anthem. After this, the World Cup was formally unveiled.

 New Delhi, 13th January 2025: India got off to a great start in the Kho Kho World Cup 2025 by defeating Nepal 42-37 at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium on Monday. India's all-round performance, led by captain and team minister Pratik Waikar, concluded a spectacular day of Kho Kho that was marked by a colourful opening ceremony, giving the team a perfect platform to continue competing for the glittering trophy.

India got off to a great start, taking out the first three Nepal defenders in just 60 seconds in the first turn of the match. India took a massive 14-point lead with three minutes remaining in Turn 1 thanks to a brilliant flying jump from Pratik Waikar and Ramji Kashyap, who took out two Nepal defenders.

Sachin Bhargo, who replaced Pratik Waikar as the 'Wazir', showed the best movement of the night. He made a spectacular skydive to take the score to 24 touch points at the break, denying Nepal the 'Dream Run'. In the Dream Run, defenders stay on the mat for three minutes without leaving the mat, after which the defending team gets a point every 30 seconds.

Nepal needed almost two minutes to score six points in Turn 2 but they came back strongly. The Indian defenders were prevented from achieving the dream run, allowing Nepal to score 20 points during their turn. Nepal's all-rounder Jogendra Rana emerged as the main offensive player, scoring four points including two dives to keep his team in the contest throughout. 

The first dream run of the Kho Kho World Cup 2025 was achieved by Nepal's Bharat Saru but it proved insufficient as India went from 24 points to 42 points, reducing the hosts' lead to 21 points in the fourth turn of play.

Jhalak BK put up a brilliant performance for Nepal in Turn 4, helping the team reduce the gap to five points once again. However, this late surge was not enough to stop Team India from securing an impressive win. And with this, the host country got off to a great start to the Kho-Kho World Cup 2025. Dailymintz