JAKARTA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Basketball squad of Indonesia is scheduled to have a tryout match in Chinese Taipei amid efforts to grant citizenship of the country to overseas players, a move aimed at strengthening performance of the team before the SEA Games this year.
The national basketball team is slated to compete in the friendly match during the Jones Cup scheduled to be held from July 12 to 21 in Chinese Taipei, head coach Wahyu Hidayat revealed.
Hidayat said that he would bring 12 to 13 players to the competition.
In addition to the away match, the coach said that naturalization of foreign players is being undertaken to boost the performance of the team.
The coach explained that the squad badly requires tall players in order to be able to compete with other teams who mostly have a good average height at their disposal.
"I need players with height of around 198 to 210 centimeters," he said on Wednesday night.
One of the squad players Keleb Ramot Gumilang admitted that the presence of the naturalized players will bring a significant change to the performance of the national team.
The player said that the competition in the forthcoming SEA Games will be tough and that the team that their hosts would be working hard to get a home victory.
Ramot Gumiland admitted that the team would have to be at their absolute best and work hard if Indonesia hope to repeat their silver medal from the last SEA games.
The 30th biennial regional multi-sport event is scheduled to be held in the Philippines from November 30 to December 11.
