Since 1990, nine Kabaddi tournaments have been held at the Asian Games, for men and women. India’s record at those nine: Gold and only gold, all nine times.

India’s 18-27 defeat to Iran in the semi-finals of the Asian Games 2018 will go down in history as the first time that India failed to reach the final, the first time they failed to win the title, the first time they failed to defend the title and so on and so forth.

To suggest that Iran won it by chance or by coincidence would be misleading. The Iranians have defeated India twice before, at the 2012 and 2014 Asian Beach Games, and have gone on to win the gold. The 2012 Indian team contained a certain Manjeet Chillar while Rahul Chaudhari, star raider, played in 2014.

In Incheon four years ago, an upset was on the cards but India pulled through. This time, Iran grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck and failed to let go. It isn’t India’s first defeat at this edition; they had lost 23-24 to South Korea in the group stages and that affected their semi-final draw, meaning they had to play Iran instead of Pakistan who also lost to Korea.

The raiders were simply unable to pull the points out of their bag as the Iranian defence held firm and closed down the Indian attackers quickly. Tied 9-9 at half-time, Iran went into overdrive in the second period as India wilted under the pressure.

The defeat caught social media by surprise too, sending shock waves through the Twitterverse.

There were messages of appreciation as well...

This... we are not really sure what to make of this.

Well, when it’s Twitter, sarcasm is never far away...