Photo from Fiba.com
The Philippines will have to make do without one of its best players in Jayson Castro in its duel against heavyweight Australia on Thursday in the 2019 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers.
Gilas Pilipinas head coach Chot Reyes on Wednesday announced the final lineup for the upcoming game, which did not include Castro.
Reyes explained that Castro’s exclusion from the roster is due to the star guard’s health.
“As you know, Jayson twisted his ankle in their games against Phoenix and Ginebra and as of yesterday (Tuesday), he tried to go hard in practice and he’s still not there at all,” said Reyes, who went live on Sports5’s Facebook page for the announcement.
“So we decided that it’s not worth the risk sp jayson is going to sit out together with Jio (Jalalon), who is also feeling some slight pain in his leg so we decided to just play the guys who are not experiencing any nagging injuries at this point.”
Gilas will be led by naturalized big man Andray Blatche and June Mar Fajardo against Australia.
Joining Blatche and Fajardo are Kiefer Ravena, Kevin Alas, Matthew Wright, Roger Pogoy, Allein Maliksi, Gabe Norwood, Carl Cruz, Abu Tratter, Japeth Aguilar and Calvin Abueva.
Abueva made the team despite begin dropped from consideration a month ago after missing the team’s first three practices to start the year.