Sri Lanka finished runner-up at the inaugural Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship, losing the men’s final to India 54-20 at the Veer Savarkar Sports Complex in Ahmedabad on Saturday, Hiru News reported.
The silver is Sri Lanka’s placing in the first edition of the tournament. India, who had beaten Uganda 35-15 in the women’s final earlier the same evening, completed a double.
Shut out at both ends of the mat
The margin came from Sri Lanka’s raiders being neutralised almost completely. India’s defence conceded seven successful raids from 41 attempts across the match, against 24 from 40 for India’s own raiders. Sri Lanka failed in seven of their nine do-or-die raids.
India led 15-8 with ten minutes of the first half remaining, having already forced an All-Out, then outscored Sri Lanka 15-2 to turn round 30-10. Sri Lanka managed two successful raids from 21 in that half while India’s defenders made nine tackles from ten attempts. India inflicted four All-Outs over the match and conceded none, finishing with 30 raid points and 14 tackle points to Sri Lanka’s 11 and nine.
Maduwantha was Sri Lanka’s leading scorer with six tackle points, including two Super Tackles; Ansaf and Viduranga added three each. The raiders who had carried Sri Lanka past Kenya in the semi-final — Sabihan, Milinda Chathuranga and Viduranga — managed five raid points between them from 31 raids in the final.
For India, Aditya Shinde top-scored with a Super 10, and Yogesh Dahiya made a High 5 from five attempts. India finished the tournament with eight wins from eight.
A note on the headline
Hiru’s Sinhala headline reads පොදුරාජ්ය මණ්ඩලීය කබඩි අනුශූරතාවය ශ්රී ලංකාවට — the අනුශූරතාව, the runner-up placing, to Sri Lanka — and the body states that India won the final 54-20. The outlet’s own English URL for the same filing reads “sri-lanka-wins-commonwealth-kabaddi-championship”, which inverts the result. Sri Lanka did not win the championship.
Not reported
Hiru’s filing is two sentences and names no players, no venue and no score beyond the final margin; the squad detail, the half-time position and the raid counts above come from ANI wire copy carried by The Tribune. No Sri Lankan newsroom has published a Sri Lanka team list, a coach’s comment or a medal presentation account that this desk could retrieve, and the semi-final against Kenya was not covered by this desk at the time it was played.
Sourcing note. Hiru News is the only verified Sri Lankan newsroom carrying this result — the Daily Mirror breaking-news rail and NewsFirst’s latest feed both had nothing on it, and Ada Derana remains unreachable from this desk. The Tribune is a genuine newsroom but is not on this site’s verified list, so it does not count toward the credibility rating; it is cited for the match detail Hiru does not carry.