Shoaib Bashir FINALLY receives his Indian visa and will join up with England’s squad this weekend… after the uncapped spinner was denied entry to the country because of his Pakistani heritage and forced to fly home
Shoaib Bashir has finally received his visa for India and will travel this weekend to join the rest of the England squad.
England’s build-up to the five-Test series with India was marred after the Indian government originally denied the uncapped spinner a visa to enter the country due to his Pakistani origins.
This meant England landed in India with just 15 members of their 16-man squad, with Bashir forced to return to London from England’s Abu Dhabi training camp to try to sort out the mess.
However, on Wednesday afternoon the ECB confirmed that the situation had finally been resolved.
They posted on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Shoaib Bashir has now received his visa and will travel this weekend to join the team. We are pleased that the situation has now been resolved.’
Shoaib Bashir has finally received his visa for India and will travel this weekend to join the rest of the England squad
Bashir, 20, could easily have played the first Test on Thursday and England captain Ben Stokes was clearly frustrated by the Indian government’s decision.
Speaking in Hyderabad, Stokes revealed that he was so emotional when he heard that Bashir would not be allowed to travel with the team that he briefly considered delaying the arrival of the entire team in India.
“When I first heard the news in Abu Dhabi I said we shouldn’t fly until Bash got his visa, but that was a bit ironic,” the England captain said as he announced his side – which includes three other players will appear. spinners – on Wednesday.
“I know it’s much bigger than doing that. That was probably just emotions surrounding the whole thing. I’m pretty devastated that Bash had to go through this.
“As a leader, as a captain, when one of your teammates is affected by something like that, you get a little emotional.
‘I know he’s back in London and a lot of people are jumping through hoops to get this through faster. Hopefully we’ll see him here this weekend.
“There was never a chance that we would ever not travel because of this, but Bash knows he has had our full support.”
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