The England Cricketer Ollie Robinson has revealed the incident on delay in Shoaib Bashir’s visa to travel to India.
Ollie Robinson on Rehan Ahmed’s Visa issues
Ollie Robinson said that he received his visa on the morning of England’s team Hyderabad bound flight from Abu Dhabi before the first Test of England’s tour of India 2024.
Rehan Ahmed also had visa issues while traveling to India after Shoaib Bashir’s visa clearance incident. Ollie Robinson said he also had problems, but stated that it was due to an error from the England Cricket Board’s side.
He added that the right-arm pacer said he only received his visa on the morning of the England team’s flight to Hyderabad from Abu Dhabi for the first test. It was due to the “missing initial” in the visa documents.
“He (Wayne Bentley, England’s manager) said, ‘your visa has been denied’ or something,” Robinson said on his podcasts. “There was an error at the ECB – I think they must have just put an initial wrong, or one letter must have been wrong.”
“It didn’t pass. He was like, ‘You’re not coming to India – you have to stay here for another night… it could be two nights, could be three nights, don’t know how long it’s going to take.’ Luckily, I woke up in the morning to a nice message from Wayne saying ‘visa’s here’.”
Robinson did not play in the two tests played in Hyderabad and Vizag as the team planned to go with only one pacer.
England had flown to Abu Dhabi on a 10-day break between the second and third Test. Rehan Ahmed was stopped from leaving Hirasar airport here because of a single-entry visa.
The local immigrants granted him a two-day visa to facilitate his entry. “Hopefully it (Ahmed’s visa issue) will be sorted in a day or so,” said Pope.
Ahmed picked two wickets in the first test where England won the match by 28 runs while he grabbed six wickets but India won the match by 106 runs to level the series 1-1.
England Cricket Board has stated, “We were advised, on returning to India, that there was paperwork discrepancy with Rehan Ahmed’s visa.”
“The local authorities at Rajkot Airport were supportive, enabling Rehan’s entry on a temporary visa.
The correct visa should be processed and issued in the coming days. He will continue to prepare with the rest of the squad ahead of the third Test,” the statement added.
India has had major setbacks with various injury concerns and withdrawals. After announcing the squad, BCCI has revealed that KL Rahul has been ruled out of the third test due to an injury.
India and England will be playing their third match starting on February 15 at Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium.
