England pace bowler faces visa issues due to this reason, ECB cancel…

England pace bowler faces visa issues due to this reason, ECB cancel…

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has reportedly had to call off the tickets for the flight of fast bowler Saqib Mahmood as he has not got his visa for England’s white-ball tour to India.

The Daily Mail reports that Mahmood’s passport is still with the Indian embassy and he has been stranded at home.

He has also missed England’s pre-planned fast-bowling camp in the UAE for the upcoming tour that would have been attended by Jofra Archer, Brydon Carse, Mark Wood and the pace bowling mentor James Anderson. The trip has its cause in the freezing conditions in the UK, which have somewhat upset Mahmood from keeping him up in practice.

The team should have left India on January 17, five days before the first T20 International at the Eden Gardens, but Mahmood is stuck maintenance that still his problem will be resolved, whether it happens or not. No statement from the ECB yet.

The visa problem is not new to him. For the second time, the British Pakistani has come across such an issue. Mahmood was without one the previous year when Lancashire toured India. Nor was he to travel with England Lions to Australia in 2019, which had led to considerable amounts of intensive discussion within the sphere of ECB offices.

Tom Harrison revealed in 2019 that he had little worries about the pair participating in the 2019 Test series. Asked for a response, ECB’s then-chief executive said, “Forget this, but we worked closely with the BCCI to try and get Saqib a visa. But these are difficult issues and very political. We can kick and wail all we like but these are issues that are sensitive and I’m not going to make a clumsy comment about it.”

“I’m really disappointed because he’s a young bowler who’d have missed out on a great opportunity to develop further,” said England men’s cricket director at the time Ashley Giles. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to do much about this, but it’s important that we keep dialogues open that might mitigate this sort of thing in the future.

After a long back and forth, the other two spinners, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed, were cleared for a visa to play in the 5-Test series against India in 2024.

Five T20Is and three ODIs against India will be played by Englan

0 Shares:
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You May Also Like