The team will play it's first of two games in Window 1 of the qualifiers, four days from now on Friday (Feb. 21) against Bahrain at the Manama, Khalifa Sport City. A couple of days after that, the team travels to Baghdad to face-off against Iraq at the Al Shaeb Hall.
India is placed in group D alongside Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon. As per the latest FIBA men's rankings, India (74) is the second-best team in the group while Lebanon, Iraq, and Bahrain are ranked 55th, 79th, and 113th respectively.
While key veteran players like Satnam Singh and Amjyot Singh (reportedly banned for 3 years) are missing, 19-year-old NBA Global Academy student-athlete Princepal Singh is part of this roster.
Singh, who recently led Punjab to gold in the U-21 category in the 2020 Khelo India Youth Games, has been at the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, Australia for over a year.
Also part of the squad is 17-year-old Amaan Sandhu. Sandhu, a student-athlete at the NBA Academy India, was also part of the gold-medal-winning Punjab squad. He was one of three Indians (the only boy) selected to the Basketball Without Border Global Camp at the 2020 All-Star Weekend in Chicago.
Muin Bek Hafeez | Tamil Nadu |
Joginder Singh | Services |
Vishesh Bhriguvanshi (Captain) | ONGC |
Prasanna Venkatesh Sivakumar | Tamil Nadu |
Sahil Indian | Railways |
Jagdeep Singh | Punjab |
Prashant Singh Rawat | Uttarakhand |
Aravind Annadurai | Tamil Nadu |
Princepal Singh | Punjab |
Amritpal Singh | Punjab |
Amaan Sandhu | Punjab |
Arvind Arumugam | Karnataka |
Source: FIBA Release