India to play to face Japan, Iraq, and hosts Yemen at U18 FIBA Asia Championship

A team of Indian youngsters will head to the city of Sana’a in Yemen to take part in the 21st FIBA Asia U18 Championship for Men, held from September 22 – October 1.India is amongst the 16 teams in this tournament, qualifying in Group D along with Japan, Iraq, and hosts Yemen.

India will try to improve its performance in this tournament from the last U18 FIBA Asia Championships which were held in Tehran (Iran) in 2008 – India only managed finish 13th in that competition.

This year, they will face a strong Japanese team in their very first game on September 22nd. India will play the hosts Yemen on September 23rd and Iraq on September 24th. The top three teams from each group will move on to the second round stage from September 25-29th, before the Quarter and Semi-Finals. The finals of the tournament will be held on Friday, October 1st.

Iran, the defending champions, once again come as strong favourites for this year's competition.

India showed a strong performance to qualify for this competition when the Middle Asia Zone Qualifying Round games were played in Bangalore from August 12-14th.They were led by great performances by players such as Arjun Singh, Dishant Shah, Shadab Khan, Amjyot Singh, and others as they went on to beat rivals Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka by an average of 39 points in each game.

The completed 12-man roster set to represent India in the FIBA Asia U18 Championship in Yemen will be announced soon.

Here is the complete group breakdown:

Group A: Iran, Sri Lanka, Taipei, Malaysia

Group B: Kazakhstan, Lebanon, South Korea, Qatar

Group C: Syria, Philippines, China, Saudi Arabia

Group D: Japan, Iraq, India, Yemen