November 25, 2022. Tamil Thalaivas vs Jaipur Pink Panthers – league stage fixture in the ninth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League. A few points separated the sides in the first half. After losing their star raider Pawan Sehrawat (now with Telugu Titans), in the first eight minutes of the season, the pack had risen to the occasion and orchestrated a jaw-dropping turnaround, with the semifinals then in sight. Suddenly, Sagar Rathee – the team’s captain and one of the league’s best defenders – twisted his knee while attempting a tackle. Those watching heard the impact before they realised what had caused it.
Sagar has been a calming presence for his younger teammates as the side tries to navigate challenging games and opponents in the tenth edition of the PKL
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Sagar has been a calming presence for his younger teammates as the side tries to navigate challenging games and opponents in the tenth edition of the PKL
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
“When I got injured, our physio told me that I had damaged my anterior cruciate ligament,” Sagar told Sportstar. “For two days, that news just didn’t sink in. I wasn’t even able to get out of bed. It never crossed my mind that I won’t be able to play because I was so high on confidence given how we’d turned our season around and in my head, I wanted to stop at nothing short of a title win,” Sagar said.
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Sagar remembered telling his team, “ Mujhe kisi bhi tarah khada kardo, khelne ka kaam main dekh loonga” (please just make me stand somehow, I’ll take care of the rest), but it wasn’t to be.
For a defender who made people sit up and take notice of his ability to be an absolute wall in the backline after an 82-point season in 2021, sitting quietly in front of a TV with a taped up leg was hardly the ideal situation.
“I got my surgery done and that really hurt my mental state because I was just lying down all day and doing nothing. My fitness dipped massively. After a while, I was able to get up slowly and walk and that pumped me up. I haven’t worked so much the whole of last season as much as I have to get back in shape for this one. And that has motivated me more to do well this time around,” Sagar said.
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FITNESS-FIRST
Pro Kabaddi teams tend to slip into the mould of being one-man armies. Pawan’s injury was a wakeup call for the Thalaivas to run as far away as possible from that template.
“When our pre-season camp began last time, we focussed so much on ground practice that in some way, fitness took a back seat. We were so caught up with skills on the mat and bettering our technical repertoire and we suffered the consequence of it in the very first game. So this time, we’ve factored fitness and workload into the mix,” he explained.
“Our New Young Players are also so talented that we can slot them into the playing seven. We’ve made reinforcements for every slot,” he added.
For Sagar’s parents, all this is Greek and Latin. His mother, a homemaker, and father, a farmer who also drives vehicles on the side, gave their son full freedom to do what he wished to do in life. “My parents first saw me play kabaddi when I got into Pro Kabaddi. They had no idea about the game or how it was played. Their message to me was clear. They said, do whatever you please, but make a name for yourself. They gave me full independence and never even came to double check if I was really in the ground playing kabaddi, as I had said,” he remembered.
“Now that they’ve watched me in Pro Kabaddi, they don’t give me tips or anything. Now the only thing they say is, “come back the same way, in one piece as you’re going. Just don’t get injured,” he chuckled.
FINDING STRENGTH
When the going gets tough, it’s good to revisit why one started on the path in the first place. Sagar’s beginnings in kabaddi go back to his time in class six. He took up the sport to spend more time with his friends who loved the sport. However, his makings as a kabaddi player began under his physical education teacher – Pratap sir.
“I told him I was interested and he said he would field me in the team. But that was it. Everyone loved sports and he looked at my case the same way. Eventually, he saw that I was a keen learner and excited to play the sport and persistent about learning as well. He took special care in grooming me in the game. My skill set, attention towards fitness, everything was learned from my time with Pratap sir,” Sagar reminisced.
At the time, no one in Sagar’s neighbourhood, a part of Rohtak in Haryana, played kabaddi. Now, everyone and their son and daughter want Sagar to teach them how to tackle the way he does.
“Life has changed a lot after Pro Kabaddi but more than the money and everything, people know my name. I can make money in a jiffy but it takes so much time to make a name for yourself and that’s a fortune I have because of kabaddi. Wherever I go, people know me because of my sport. People now look at my village and my family with pride because of what I’ve got in this sport,” Sagar said, fighting the urge to contain a smile.
FOMO
In the span of six months, Sagar’s parents would see him bite his teeth and swallow two disappointments. One was of course the injury setback and the other was not making it to the Indian squad for the international sojourns in 2023 – in Busan for the Asian Kabaddi Championships and Hangzhou for the Asian Games.
“We were in the pre-season camp when the Asian Games was happening. It’s easy to play matches but the hardest thing to do is to watch your own team play when you’re not there with them,” Sagar exclaimed, the hurt of missing out evidently still sticking around.
“Each time, I’d see a passage of play I thought I could handle better or a mistake someone made, it would sting a little harder,” he added.
Sagar has an opportunity to set the record straight with two events – the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games scheduled in Bangkok (rescheduled multiple times since 2021) and the Kabaddi World Cup – both tentatively after the PKL season ends. To even think so far, Sagar must first take baby steps.
“Everyone wants to represent India. If we play well in Pro Kabaddi, only then will I be able to make a case for myself for India in international tournaments. So I know that the only thing I should be thinking of is having a remarkable season this time,” he explained.
Athletes in team sports rarely ever focus solely on their individual milestones, at least not publicly, as Sagar might be too. While his own ambitions and the trajectory of his career rely on his showing on the mat this season, Sagar is thinking not just of himself, but of the six others with him on the mat.
My only ambition this season is to spend as much time as possible on the mat. Points, milestones none of it matters, as long as I am on the mat and doing everything possible to help my team win, I am happy,” he concluded.
