Wednesday, September 27, 2023    Updated 1h ago ePaper









Pakistan players finally get Indian visa for World Cup

Pakistan players finally get Indian visa for World Cup

The most recent drama surrounding the World Cup relates to Pakistan's visa delay issues.The World Cup is so close that the number of days remaining for the opener between England and New Zealand can be counted on fingers. Yet, controversy simply doesn't seem to leave the tournament. The rescheduling of fixtures finally out of the way, the latest drama gripping the World Cup is Pakistan's issues regarding a delay in getting visas. Players of the Pakistan cricket team were finally issued their visas on Monday – 48 hours before their scheduled departure to India – but it wasn’t before the matter had to be escalated. The last team approved by the Indian government to travel, the PCB had to write to the ICC asking for an intervention to sort out the issue. This led to a lot of chaos, involving the ICC, PCB and the BCCI, the lowdown of which we are going to elaborate on. It was last Friday that concerns surrounding Pakistan's visas came to light. As per original plans, the players were supposed to fly to the UAE for a couple of days as part of a team-building exercise and then reach India two days ahead of their World Cup warm-up against New Zealand in Hyderabad. However, with the visas still stuck at the Indian High Commission, those plans couldn't come to fruition. But that wasn't the only concern. With visas granted to all 9 teams barring Pakistan, the PCB expressed its displeasure at India and the BCCI's indifference, but as ESPNCricinfo reported, their hands were tied too.In the first week of August, the ...

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