Initially adopted as means of attracting recruits from Asian communities in Britain, it has been such a hit that the Army's new team recently gave the Indian army's national squad a run for its money. The fledgling side's coach even threw down to gauntlet on Indian national television predicting that a future English national team would be the best in the world at the game.

With all the rough and tumble of the playground favourite British Bulldogs, kabaddi has been compared with everything from Greco-Roman wrestling to rugby. Two teams stand at opposing ends of a field and send raiders into each others' half to tag rival players by wrestling them and gain points.

The twist is that they have to hold their breath during the entire raid. As well as being hugely popular in India and Pakistan it is the national sport of Bangladesh and has been taken up in Iran and Japan.

Ashok Das, who coaches the Army team, hopes that his players will eventually form the nucleus of an English national side which could one day challenge the world - a belief which caused some consternation in India during the squad's recent debut tour. He explained: "They said to me, 'You are Indian, aren't you ashamed to do this to your country?'

"I said, 'I was Indian, now I am British, I have to pay back my country. They are not winning at football, now they will win at kabaddi'." England have lost two Test match series to India in the last 18 months.