THE Indian basketball team arrived yesterday in the kingdom for a mouth-watering clash against Bahrain in the 2021 Fiba Asia Cup qualifier set for tomorrow at Khalifa Sports City in Isa Town, starting 7pm.
Lebanon and Iraq are the other two teams in Group ‘D’.
Tomorrow’s match kicks off a long and protracted qualifying process involving 24 teams, divided into six groups of four each, playing home and away, which concludes in February next year.
The top two teams in each group qualify for the 2021 Asia Cup to be held in Beirut from August 3 to 15.
The six third-placed teams will play in a final qualifying tournament to be held in June-July 2021 with the top four completing the 16-team line-up for the 2021 Asia Cup.
Bahrain take on Lebanon in Beirut on Monday and then travel to Iraq for the November 26 clash before taking on India in India on November 29.
Bahrain then host Lebanon on February 19 next year, and conclude the qualifying process on February 22 with a match against Iraq at home.
The 12-member Indian team includes two seven-foot, two inch giants in Amritpal Singh and Jagdeep Singh.
The team is captained by Vishesh Bhriguvanshi and includes Muin Bek Hafeez, Joginder Singh, Prasanna Venkatesh Sivakumar, Sahil, Prashant Singh Rawat, Aravind Annadurai, Princepal Singh, Amaan Sandhu and Arvind Arumugam.
Well-known Serbian tactician Veselin Matic is the coach, B Dayananda the manager, Mohit Bhandari and Pradeep Tomar the assistant coaches and Siva Shanmuga Singh the physiotherapist.
Matic has a long and strong record having previously coached the national teams of Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran and Poland. He has also worked with top NBA players like Boris Diaw, Peja Stojakovic, Vladimir Radmanovic and Marcin Gortat.
Bahrain coach Sam Vincent also has an enviable record. The 56-year-old, who took over from Serbian Darko Russo last month, is a former NBA point guard and well-known in Bahrain having previously coached Manama, Al Ahli and Riffa, whom he famously guided to their maiden victory in the prestigious Khalifa bin Salman Cup last season.
His 14-member team includes Mohammed Hussain, Ahmed Aldurazi, Ali Shukrallah, Mohammed Buallay, Subah Hussain, Mohammed Salman, Mohammed Qurban, Maytham Jameel, Hesham Sarhan, Ahmed Abdulaziz, Mohammed Ameer, Muzamel Ameer, Ahmed Najaf and CJ Giles.
The Indian team held a training session last evening at Al Hala Club in Muharraq while the hosts worked it out at Khalifa Sports City Stadium in Isa Town.
Both teams will have a couple more training sessions today before tomorrow’s match.
Bahrain Basketball Association, meanwhile, announced yesterday that entry will be free for tomorrow’s match.
Bahrain held a training camp in Jordan earlier this month and also played in a friendly tournament, but lost all their four matches and finished fifth and last.
But coach Vincent expressed confidence in his team and sounded upbeat ahead of tomorrow’s match.