Indian players go through nightmare en route to Jordan for Saturday's international friendly

THE INDIAN NATIONAL TEAM went through a terrible ordeal on their way to Jordan, with long delays leading to them reaching Amman barely a day before they are supposed to play a match.

The highly anticipated international friendly is set to take place tomorrow at the King Abdullah II Stadium in Amman, Jordan. The kick off time is set at 10:30 pm Indian Standard Time on Saturday. But due to multiple Indian players being stuck in transit for two days and finally making it to Amman barely a day before the match, the match almost got cancelled.

In order to reach with ample time at hand, the Indian national squad with 22 players, coaching and managerial staff took off on the 14th November. There were concerns about their journey since Jordan had recently seen massive floods that took many lives, and bad weather continued in the region.

But the journey took a turn for the worse much before they got close to Jordan. Scheduled to take a connecting flight from the Kuwait International Airport, the Indian team found itself at an impasse: all outbound flights were cancelled from Kuwait International Airport due to bad weather.

The players were travelling in groups on two different flights. One group's flight was diverted to Doha due to bad weather in Kuwait. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise for them as they reached Jordan on a connecting flight on Thursday evening, experiencing a delay of almost a day. But the other group, which included 7 players, the coach and some managerial staff, was about to get the worst of it. They reached Kuwait, but were stuck there.

The players spent the entire Wednesday night waiting at the lounge for updates on their flight. At one point, the airport even had a food shortage as thousands of passengers were stuck there. Bringing in extra food also took time since bad weather conditions had caused massive land traffic blocks in the city, forcing schools and other establishments to remain closed for the day.

Towards the evening, air traffic finally resumed. But the huge backlog of delayed flights meant most flights would stil take hours before they could take off. So the players' long wait for their flight to Jordan still was not over.

On Thursday night, a day and a half since their journey had begun, the players were still stuck in the Kuwait International Airport.

While some of the airlines had resumed service, a large chunk of UAE-based airlines including Etihad, Emirats, FlyDubai and Air Arabia, were still not operational due to possibilities of the weather in the region worsening. The UAE embassy even issued a statement earlier today cautioning their citizens from visiting Kuwait due to the bad weather.

Luckily, the Indian team had booked its passage on Kuwait Airways, so they did not get stuck in further indefinite delay. But even then their flight, which was supposed to have taken off on Wednesday, was still nowhere to be seen on the upcoming departure board.

As the day progressed, they were still stuck at the airport, without proper beds and hardly able to get some sleep. It took them until Friday afternoon to finally get on a flight to their desitnation in Amman, Jordan, where heavy rains were ongoing following recent flash floods in the region but Saturday's weather forecast spoke of partly cloudy but sunny skies.

The flight landed in the Queen Alia International Airport on Friday, 16th November, after 7:00 pm Indian Standard Time. That's about 27 hours before the start of the match. 

This was followed by a long wait to clear immigration and collect their baggage, and discovered to their shock that their baggage was missing. To find those, the airport staff took another good couple of hours. By the time the players reached the hotel, it was just over 24 hours left for the match to begin. They were exhausted and it was impossible for them to recover fast enough to play a full match.

Back in 2016, Team India faced a similar situation when their flight was delayed for a day when travelling from from Turkmenistan to Oman for back to back away games in the World Cup Qualifiers. India lost to Oman 3-0 in that game; all goals came in the second half with the Indian players struggling to keep up for 90 minutes.

While this game is considered a crucial one in India's preparation for Asian Cup, risking the health of exhausing players seems like a risk not worth taking, and news broke from several quarters that the match was cancelled.

But the AIFF released a statement saying the match was going to take place, 

"With 7 members of the Indian National Team having left stranded at the Kuwait International Airport for over 32 hours, courtesy heavy thunderstorm and rains, it is not the ideal situation for Stephen Constantine’s boys as they try to recover in time to take on a strong Jordan team in the scheduled International Friendly in Amman on Saturday (November 17, 2018).
 
Amidst torrential downpour along with lightning and thunder which has inundated Kuwait City with heavy flooding, forced postponements and cancellation of several flights, seven players -- Jeje Lalpekhlua, Balwant Singh, Manvir Singh, Sumeet Passi, Udanta Singh, Halicharan Narzary, Ashique Kuruniyan -- along with some members of the support staff were left stranded for over 32 hours at the Kuwait International Airport en route to Amman.
 
To add to all the dismay and frustration, the luggage including player’s kits, team equipment and personal belongings of all the players and support staff also went missing when they landed in Amman.
 
However, the match, the first-ever International Friendly between the two countries will kick-off as scheduled on Saturday (November 17) at IST 10.30pm and will be telecast live on Star Sports Network."

One can only hope that the players will not be negatively affected by this match, which they are obviously not in full health to participate in.

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