Five major talking points of Khalid Jamil's first provisional India squad

Khalid Jamil is the newly-appointed Indian Football team head coach.

Khalid Jamil is getting ready for the first set of matches as the head coach of the Indian national team and has already started his preparatory training camp for the CAFA Nations Cup. As many as 22 players have reported to the camp amid the ongoing Durand Cup campaign, with 13 more players expected to join later on.

There have been some notable inclusions and exclusions from the India probable squad list for the CAFA Nations Cup games. Jamil’s interesting selection has started giving a few hints over how he wants the Indian football team to look under him. Here we look at the five major talking points from Khalid Jamil’s first squad as the India head coach.

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5. Rare inclusion of an Indian Army player

Khalid Jamil has already made it clear that he will not only be following the trope of selecting players from the Indian Super League (ISL). He’s surprised many fans with the inclusion of defender Sunil Benchamin, who impressed in the 2025 Durand Cup as part of Army Red.

Benchamin has also played for the likes of TRAU FC and Diamond Harbour FC in the past, with his performances in the I-League also impressing Jamil.

The centre-back is known for being a physically strong and dominant centre-back who can bully forwards and win duels impressively. As a result, he’s earned his place in the India national team squad over defenders like Jamshedpur FC man Prathik Chaudhari or Kerala Blasters defender Hormipam Ruivah.

It’s now on Benchamin to prove that he can hold with the experienced Indian defenders and potentially make his debut under Jamil.

4. Gurpreet Singh Sandhu makes a comeback

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Khalid Jamil has shown that he will have a rewarding experience in his Indian national team squad by calling up Gurpreet Singh Sandhu into the squad again. Gurpreet makes a comeback to the India set-up after being snubbed by Manolo Marquez for the last few international windows, with the Spaniard opting to play Vishal Kaith instead. It appears that Jamil will be allowing Gurpreet to prove his quality and fight for the no.1 role in his side alongside Kaith.

The 33-year-old defender had a topsy-turvy 2024-25 season with Bengaluru FC, keeping 13 clean sheets in 32 games, but also making some notable errors. Sandhu will need to work really hard in training, showcasing his flash-like reflexes to make clutch saves and also in moving the ball forward well to impress the gaffer.

3. More numbers of midfielders

It appears that the new India gaffer wants to have a lot of options at his disposal when it comes to flooding his midfield line. He has actually ended up calling 13 midfielders in his 35 man squad for the training camp, which is a pretty significant increase to how much Marquez called up in his final camp. The FC Goa gaffer opted to select around nine midfielders, with Jamil naming four more players to help him judge the quality of his players.

This could entail that Jamil might be looking to pay a larger number of midfielders in his side, probably so that his side can start controlling matches more fluidly. There has been some interesting changes to the midfield options and that should help bring a sense of freshness to India’s operation in the midfield battle.

2. Sahal Abdul Samad replaces Brandon Fernandes

Khalid Jamil has a major task ahead of himself when it comes to adding more creativity to India’s midfield line and making the Blue Tigers play more exciting attacking football. It seems that he’s made his choice over exactly which player he’d want to be that creative outlet in his midfield. The gaffer has not named Brandon Fernandes in his squad for the upcoming CAFA Nations Cup, while Sahal Abdul Samad makes a return to the India camp.

Sahal has performed impressively in the 2025 Durand Cup for Mohun Bagan, scoring two goals and also providing a few assists. Samad’s energetic performances and eye for goal seems to have won over Jamil, who has dropped Brandon for him.

This could be a risky decision considering how accurate Fernandes’ cross, final passes and set piece threat is, but Jamil appears to prefer Sahal’s energetic style and defensive contribution over Brandon.

1. No Sunil Chhetri

The biggest notable absentee from Khalid Jamil’s first squad as the India head coach is that of Sunil Chhetri. Indeed, the Bengaluru FC forward has been snubbed from the squad after having been forced back from retirement earlier in the 2024-25 season by Manolo Marquez.

It appears that Jamil does not want to rely on Chhetri anymore and is trying to find another clinical forward who can operate in that no.9 role instead. Jamil has recalled the likes of Irfan Yadwad and Rahim Ali into his squad to be possible options for that no.9 role.

Neither of the two forwards were really able to impress under Marquez, but Jamil seems confident that they could possibly thrive in his system. Jamil is under pressure to improve India’s goal scoring prowess and discover more clinical goalscorers in his team, which makes dropping a ruthless forward like Chhetri surprising.

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