India up for tough matches in FIBA Asia Cup 2021 qualifiers, have good chance of qualifying, says Amjyot Singh

The Indian men’s basketball team returns to action this Friday with their match against Saudi Arabia in the FIBA Asia Cup 2021 qualifiers. Thirteen teams have already made it to the continental tournament and the remaining three teams will be selected through the second round of the qualifying tournament that will take place in August. Five teams that finished third in their respective groups in the first qualifying round — Chinese Taipei (Group B), Guam (Group C), India (Group D), Saudi Arabia (Group E), and Palestine (Group F) — are part of August qualifiers. Indonesia which finished third in Group A have got a direct entry as hosts. The five teams have been divided into two groups — H and G. Guam and Chinese Taipei are part of Group H and one of them will qualify for the main tournament. India are part of Group H which also includes Saudi Arabia and Palestine. The Group H matches will take place in Saudi Arabia and two teams from Group H will qualify for Asia Cup. India have participated in all but two editions (1993 and 1999) of the Asia Cup since 1965, and they would not want the streak to break. Palestine (83) and Saudi Arabia (87) are ranked below India (78) but star cager Amjyot Singh Gill , though confident that India will qualify, is not ready to take anything lightly in the upcoming matches. “It will be a tough match against both teams because both — Saudi Arabia and Palestine — have been improving continuously,” Amjyot, who played for Oklahoma City Blue and Wisconsin Herd in NBA G-League, tells Firstpost. “The last time we played Palestine we only won by three points. In Asian Games (2014), we lost to Saudi. A lot will depend on who is up for it on the day, but I am pretty confident we will do good.” The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously impacted the sporting calendar, not only limiting competitive matches to a handful but also restricting training activities. The Asia Cup was to take place this month in Indonesia but has been postponed to July 2022. The Indian hoopsters have been in a national camp since 30 June in Bengaluru, preparing for the qualifiers which have included analysing their opponents. “Our camp started on 30 June in Bengaluru. Our focus is first on winning these two qualifiers match against Saudi Arabia and Palestine. We have been watching videos of their past matches, how they play, who are their key players,” said the former NBA G-League player. “The coach has done a good job in helping us with conditioning job. The team is back to the fitness required for these matches, also the players who were earlier missing are back. We have a good chance of qualifying from these matches.” The qualifiers will be another opportunity for coach Veselin Matic to showcase the work he has done with the Indian team. Appointed to the post in 2019, the former Poland and Iran coach has often reiterated that his aim is to make India one of the top eight basketball teams in Asia. Currently, they are ranked 14th in Asia. One of the highlights of the Serbian coach so far has been his willingness to give opportunities to young players that have led to players like Muin Bek Hafeez making a name for himself in the qualifiers. The current squad includes experienced hoopsters like Amritpal Singh and captain Vishesh Bhriguvanshi besides Amjyot but the veteran cagers would be teaming up with young players like 18-year-old Pranav Prince and NBA Academy India graduates Arvind Kumar, Pranav Prince and Prashant Singh Rawat in Saudi Arabia as India aim to reach the Asia Cup. “We have a great future. The coach has been focusing on young players. We had 30-35 players in the national camp and most of them were young basketball players. This will help the youngsters do well at the age-group level and eventually when they play for the senior team,” adds Amjyot. “The main thing is that he (Matic) is giving opportunities to the young players and the players are doing a good job, meeting his expectations. Also, he is doing a lot of different work on defence like we are training for full-court press, 2-1-2 zone defence and Basketball Federation of India has helped us get to our best with the camp. So everyone is coming together, making an effort and now it’s on us to convert it into results.” When asked about how the improvement in exposure and infrastructure within the basketball ecosystem of India has benefitted the upcoming players, Amjyot said: “The young players are having an improved technical game, because of the NBA Academy, they are getting to learn the basics early on which we learnt after coming to the India camp. They have a better game awareness as compared to what we had in our youth days. So I think they will have a great future.” India’s match against Saudi Arabia will take place on 20 August at 8.45 pm IST. The Palestine game will be played on 21 August at the same time. The matches can be streamed at  livebasketball.tv. With all three teams playing two games each, India will hope to qualify without any fuss by winning both their matches. India squad: Muin Bek Hafeez, Aravind Annadurai, Arvind Kumar Muthu Krishnan, Jagdeep Singh, Amjyot Singh, Amritpal Singh, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi (c), Prashant Singh Rawat, Joginder Singh, Sahaij Pratap Singh Sekhon, Pratyanshu Tomar and Pranav Prince.