Kabaddi coach from Kasaragod to get lifetime Dronacharya Award

Kasaragod: The high-performing kabaddi coach from Kasaragod, Edachery Bhaskaran, has been nominated for the coveted Dronacharya Award in the lifetime category by the Union Ministry of Sports.

He is among three coaches nominated for the highest award for a coach in the lifetime category; Jaskirat Singh Grewal (golf) and Jayanta Kumar Pushilal (table tennis) are the other two.

The ministry has also nominated five coaches for the Dronacharya Award in the regular category.
President Droupadi Murmu will confer the Award on them at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 9.

Captain Edachery Bhaskaran (59) was born in Kodakkad, a village in Kerala's Kasaragod district, where kabaddi is a popular sport.

The retired armyman was first made the coach of the Indian men's kabaddi team in 2009. The same year, the team won gold at the 11th Asian Kabaddi Championship in Vietnam.

In 2010, he helped the Indian men's team win gold at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou as the head coach. He repeated the feat with the women's team at the 17th Asian Games at Incheon in South Korea in 2014.

To be sure, men's kabaddi was introduced in the Asian Games in 1990, and India had a golden stranglehold till 2014. In 2018, India lost the gold for the first time, losing to Iran at Jakarta-Palembang Asiad. Women's kabaddi was introduced in Asiad in 2010, and Indian women won gold in 2010, 2014, and 2023. Like the men's team, Indian women also lost to Iran in 2018.

In the Pro Kabaddi League, Capt Bhaskaran was the head coach of U Mumba for seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5 from 2014 to 2017; and was the head coach of Tamil Thalivas for seasons 6 and 7 from 2018 to 2019.

He helped U Mumba lift the cup in the second season in 2015. The team was runners-up in 2014 and 2016.

Bhaskaran started playing kabaddi for his neighbourhood club Redstar at Vellachal in Kodakkad village. He wore the kabaddi jersey for Payyannur College and the University of Calicut.

He joined the Army's Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers (EME) at Bhopal and went on to become a Subedar Major. From 1995 to 2015, he was the coach of the Services kabaddi team. He retired as an honorary Captain of the Army.