MUMBAI — For the uninitiated, kabaddi, the ancient Indian game that is taking the world’s second-most populous country by storm, looks far too simple to be a professional sport.

A hybrid of rugby, touch football and the playground game known in England as British Bulldog and in the United States as Red Rover (“Red rover, red rover, let Tommy come over...”), kabaddi (pronounced kuh-bud-DEE) uses no balls, pucks, nets, goal posts, hoops, holes, rackets, clubs, sticks or bats. It is so unknown in the West that on August 8, 2017, ESPNU, the American digital cable and satellite sports television channel owned by ESPN Inc., showcased what it termed “the finest in seldom seen sports,” including the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup Final. An exhibition match was played at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, but it did not catch on internationally.

But those who take the time to examine India’s rare homegrown game that is gaining appeal abroad begin to recognize a highly strategic endeavor that demands speed, strength, timing, an understanding of geometric angles and the kind of fancy footwork that would have impressed Muhammad Ali and Fred Astaire.

Indians like that it’s the only competition in the wide world of sports to require the player on offense to chant a word — “kabaddi,” derived from “kai-pidi,” meaning “to hold hands” in the Tamil language — in one uninterrupted breath for the 30 seconds of his run at the defense. The sport takes its playbook from the Mahabharata, the 9th Century B.C.E. Hindu epic poem, where it’s mentioned as a military formation called the Chakravyuha. It has been enjoyed for hundreds of years as a rural game played on India’s dirt and mud fields.