India’s international friendly against Jordan cancelled

The international friendly between India and Jordan, which was set to be played on Saturday, has been cancelled after the Indian squad landed in Amman on Friday night with less than 24 hours remaining to kickoff.

According to Goal.com, seven of India’s 23-member contingent and few other officials were stuck at the Kuwait City airport for more than 10 hours after their flight to Amman from Delhi was diverted because of heavy rainfall. The remaining 15 had already reached Jordan on Thursday.

The middle-eastern country has been severely affected by flash floods and incessant rainfall in recent weeks with at least 13 people losing their lives to its ravages.

As a result, the entire squad could assemble together in Jordan only in the late hours of Friday night leaving the players both mentally and physically exhausted because of the trauma they had to undergo to reach Jordan.

It was also reported that the other 15 players, who reached Jordan on Thursday, had to take an unscheduled diversion to Doha before reaching Amman airport.

It has also been impossible to reschedule the match to Sunday as Jordan is set to face Saudi Arabia at home on Tuesday. And hence the Indian management was left with no other option but call off the game.

The pre-match conference, which involved Indian coach Stephen Constantine and his counterpart Vital Borkelmans, was also cancelled after it could not be conducted on Friday.

Meanwhile, India does not have any other friendly lined-up in the current international week and next play Oman on December 27, just days before their first Asia Cup encounter against Thailand on January 6 in 2019.

Given the current situation in the country, the Jordan Football Association (JFA) had announced that the amount collected from the ticket sales of the match against India would be donated to the national relief fund.

Ranked 97^th, India has been drawn alongside hosts UAE, Thailand and Bahrain in Group A at the Asia Cup.

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