PANCHKULA: India’s legendary Kabaddi player Anup Kumar, also known as ‘Captain Cool’ in the world game, announced his retirement Wednesday as his team Jaipur Pink Panthers took on Gujarat FortuneGiants in a home match during the VIVO Pro Kabaddi League.
The Arjuna Award winner concludes a historic 12-year career, where he has led several teams to victory and grown the sport in the country. He began his international career in 2006 at the South Asian Games in Sri Lanka.
Kumar was part of the Indian national Kabaddi team that won gold medals in 2010 and 2014. Thereafter, he captained the side to two gold medals at Asian Games in 2014 and the Kabaddi World Cup in 2016. In Season 2 of the PKL, he also led U Mumba in their title-winning campaign.
“When I started playing kabaddi, I was invested in the sport because I liked it and it was a great hobby, over the years a hobby became the most important part of my life. The day I took to playing kabaddi professionally, I had one dream, to represent my country and bring back a gold medal, I am one of the few lucky people who had the opportunity to accomplish the most important dream of my life. Today, with the Pro Kabaddi League, the magnitude of the sport has grown leaps and bounds and I could not be happier than to watch and grow and be a part of this journey. This platform is an extremely important aspect of my life and that is why today I use the platform to make this announcement. Coincidentally, today is also the 10th birthday of my son, and that makes this date even more memorable. Going forward, if there is anything I am confident about, it is knowing that I will always want to be connected to the sport.” Kumar said.
Reacting to the announcement, PKL League Commissioner Anupam Goswami said: “This is a great decision by a great player from a great stage of kabaddi. It is also for the first time a senior player has announced his retirement of his playing career during an ongoing season of VIVO Pro Kabaddi. Just shows the importance kabaddi players attach to a league like Pro Kabaddi. Anup of course has been a senior player and a role model athlete for this sport. We totally respect his decision. “It is well recognised that Pro Kabaddi has had a profound impact on the emergence of the sport on the global stage. Anup has played such a crucial role and a distinguished role in the process. He has established himself as a role model by his sportsman spirit, by the competitiveness of his captaincy as well as his play. He will continue to impress Kabaddi players for a long time. I am sure that this retirement decision of his career relates only to him as a player and he will continue his engagement and involvement with Kabaddi in various roles. In that process as well, I am sure he will emerge as role model for kabaddi players.”
