Team India leave for Doha tomorrow

Tomorrow evening Team India leave their training base in Dubai to fly across to the Qatari capital Doha ahead of two international friendlies against hosts Qatar on December 19 and old rivals Syria on December 26.

Qatar, who have been in the news over the last few days as they won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, are the hosts of the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. And for the return to the continental Asian stage after a gap of 27 years India has been training abroad in Portugal and Dubai over the last five month's to prepare themselves to face Australia (January 10), Bahrain (January 14) and South Korea (January 18) in a very tough Group C.

But preparations haven't been going too well in recent weeks. First there were the terrible results in international friendlies against Kuwait (1-9) and the United Arab Emirates (0-5) plus the growing list of injured players. News out of Dubai is that Bob Houghton has asked the AIFF to send five/six players across to the Gulf to strengthen his list of probables as some of the 30 players are sure to miss the Asian Cup. Currently around 10 players are said to be injured. Already training with the squad is goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu as Subhashish Roy Chowdhury and Arindam Bhattacharya have been carrying injuries on and off.