Indian Railways are the kings of Indian domestic kabaddi again. The team beat Maharashtra 49-31 at the Sama Indoor Stadium in Vadodara on 28 February to lift the 72nd Senior Men's National Kabaddi Championship, closing out a four-day, 54-match tournament with an 18-point margin in the final.
The championship drew 29 teams across eight pools, condensed into a brutal schedule that produced its share of upsets before the seeded sides settled the title between themselves. Railways arrived as the most decorated programme in the competition's history, and they fought through a dramatic semi-final against Chandigarh that ended 38-38 in regulation before Railways edged the tie-breaker 7-4 to advance.
Maharashtra had to negotiate a hard semi-final of their own, knocking out Uttar Pradesh 49-36 to set up the rematch every neutral wanted. Captain Aslam Inamdar — also one of the Indian probables headed to the Bellary camp — led the Maharashtra effort, with Aditya Shinde producing 12 raid points and Shivam Patare adding 8 more. It wasn't enough.
Railways were sharper in every phase of the final. Pankaj Mohite top-scored with 12 raid points, Ashu Malik chipped in with 8, and Shubham Shinde's defensive masterclass at corner — 27 tackle points across the tournament, the best in the competition — broke Maharashtra's raiding rhythm in the second half. Captain Sunil Kumar marshalled the unit through key timeouts, and the final scoreline reflected what had been a one-sided second half rather than the closer first 20 minutes.
The individual honours read like a preview of the next PKL season. Bhavani Rajput of Goa was named the tournament's top raider with 58 raid points across the week — a remarkable haul that will reset his auction value at the next PKL bidding cycle. Shubham Shinde's tackle title underlined again that elite right-corner defence is the most undervalued asset in modern kabaddi.
For the wider game, the 72nd Senior Nationals served two purposes. The first was to crown a champion — Railways add to their already long honours list. The second was to give the Asian Games selectors a final, high-stakes look at India's domestic stars before the Bellary camp. Sunil Kumar, Ashu Malik, Aslam Inamdar and Pawan Sehrawat all featured at the Sama Indoor Stadium and all carried their form into the camp that started exactly four weeks later. The road to the Asian Games defence runs through performances like this.
