India gear up for tri-nation game against Mauritius

Placed 97th in the FIFA rankings, India will take on St Kitts and Nevis, the third team in the tournament, on August 25. Mauritius is ranked 160th while St Kitts and Nevis is ranked 125th.

While playing against stronger teams would have helped India prepare in a much better way for the match against Macau on September 5, still the team can garner some ranking points by winning the tournament.

India head coach Stephen Constantine said that the tri- nation games will give him an opportunity to try out new players.

"My initial plan was to play one game, close to (the game against) Macau. Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei play similar style.

(But) when the opportunity came to play two games, that gives me more time, it also gives me more opportunities to try new players, so we wanted one team from Africa, one team from Caribbean, one team from Asia to make it a four team tournament," he told reporters here.

"The timing of the games is difficult. This time most teams are away with clubs, it was quite difficult to get the teams we got. We have two opponents who will give us different problems and an opportunity for us to re-acquaint," he said.

"People forget that we have not played since June, and we need more than 2-3 days to understand each other. We have two games and that is good enough," the coach said.

Constantine announced that Sandesh Jhinghan will lead the side.

"I have given more than 100 international debuts to players in my career. I believe that they have something to offer, and when they show that they have nothing to offer, they are gone. Sandesh was one such young boys and now he is captain for tomorrow's game," the coach said.

He said though higher in FIFA rankings his side cannot be complacent against the two sides in the tournament.

"We are not going to disrespect or underestimate the quality of two teams, who are here. I know Mauritius. They lost to Ghana recently and you don't lose to Ghana unless you are doing something right. St Kittts, they are not Jamaica, but they play similar style and have similar sort of philosophy. It will be something new for us playing against these culture teams.

"(If) we want to compete at the top level, we need to be able to play teams from different continents instead of just playing Asian teams. We are going to get a real test. We are playing an African team, we are going to play a team from South America," said Constantine.

India is on top of the AFC Asian Cup qualifying Group A at the moment, courtesy back-to-back victories over Myanmar and the Kyrgyz Republic.

Macau will be an altogether different challenge and Constantine would assess the strengths and weaknesses of his side in the these games.

"The vision is to qualify for Asian Cup, the vision then will be to go to the Asian Cup and try and compete with these big guns in Asia. We need to qualify for the Asian Cup on regular basis before we qualify for the World Cups," he said.

The Indian side is familiar with the conditions, having won its last game against Nepal here and also the fact that the players train at the Mumbai Football Arena where the matches are to be played.

The coach ruled out any injuries but said a few players were having stiffness.

"We have Sumit Passi, who was never going to play. We can help him in rehabilitation process," he quipped.

Mauritius player Jonathan Bru termed tomorrow's game as a good exposure.

"We have been exposed to the African teams and not to the Asian team. We will take experience from the game against India," he said.