Hyderabad/London: The England and Wales Cricket Board on Wednesday said that right-arm off-spinner Shoaib Bashir has received his India visa and will join the England team this weekend.
A huge controversy erupted after Bashir, who is yet to make his Test debut, had to fly back to the United Kingdom as he did not receive his visa and could not join the team for the first Test that will begin at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad from Thursday.
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Shoaib Bashir has now received his visa, and is due to travel to join up with the team in India this weekend.
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) January 24, 2024 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="
We're glad the situation has now been resolved.#INDvENG | #EnglandCricket pic.twitter.com/vTHdChIOIi
">Shoaib Bashir has now received his visa, and is due to travel to join up with the team in India this weekend.
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) January 24, 2024
We're glad the situation has now been resolved.#INDvENG | #EnglandCricket pic.twitter.com/vTHdChIOIiShoaib Bashir has now received his visa, and is due to travel to join up with the team in India this weekend.
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) January 24, 2024
We're glad the situation has now been resolved.#INDvENG | #EnglandCricket pic.twitter.com/vTHdChIOIi
England Cricket on its X (formerly known as Twitter) handle posted, "Shoaib Bashir has now received his visa, and is due to travel to join up with the team in India this weekend. We're glad the situation has now been resolved (sic)."
20-year-old Bashir is of Pakistani heritage, and was the only member of the touring team to not receive his visa in time for the series. As a result, he was stuck in Abu Dhabi, the venue for the visitors’ pre-series camp, while the rest of the England team travelled to Hyderabad. It is understood that Bashir flew back to United Kingdom and completed the necessary paper work.
England skipper Ben Stokes said he was pretty devastated over the visa issues preventing Shoaib Bashir from traveling to India for the Test series.
"When I first found the news out in Abu Dhabi, I did say we shouldn't fly until Bash gets his visa but that was a little bit tongue in cheek. I know it's a way bigger thing, doing that. That was probably just (my) emotions around the whole thing. There was never a chance that we were not going to travel around this but Bash knows he's had our full support," Stokes had said.
India captain Rohit Sharma too in his pre match press conference had said that he felt for Bashir. Rohit quipped that he did not know the details as he was not working in the Visa office.
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