AFC Asian Cup 2019: Sunil Chhetri to lead India

Bengaluru, December 27: Bengaluru FC's talismanic striker Sunil Chhetri will lead the 23-man Indian squad for the ensuing 2019 AFC Asian Cup to be held in the UAE.

Indian coach Stephen Constantine had named a 34-member probables squad for the continental competition and the All India Football Federation pruned the list to 23.

"It was very important to keep on the continuity. It'll be silly of me to completely change the way we do things. Most of these boys are with us for some time now. We are looking forward to the massive tournament. We hope these 23 boys will do a good job for us," said Constantine.

Chhetri will be leading the side which has seasoned campaigners Jeje Lalpekhlua and Sandesh Jhingan.

At the AFC Asian Cup, India are drawn along with Bahrain, Thailand and hosts UAE in Group A.

The Blue Tigers will begin their campaign against Thailand on January 6. The matches against hosts UAE and Bahrain are slotted for January 10 and January 14 respectively.

As part of the preparations, India will play an international friendly against Oman on Thursday (December 27) at the Baniyas Stadium in Abu Dhabi. The match which will be played closed doors will kick off at 7.30pm IST.

India Squad:

Forwards: Sunil Chhetri, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Sumeet Passi, Balwant Singh

Midfielders: Udanta Singh, Jackichand Singh, Anirudh Thapa, Germanpreet Singh, Vinit Rai, Rowllin Borges, Pronay Halder, Ashique Kuruniyan, Halicharan Narzary

Defenders: Pritam Kotal, Sarthak Golui, Salam Ranjan Singh, Anas Edathodika, Sandesh Jhingan, Subhasish Bose, Narayan Das

Goalkeepers: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Amrinder Singh, Vishal Kaith.