The PCB has expressed its strong displeasure to the ICC over the delay in visas being issued to the Pakistan team, and warned of the adverse impact on the team’s preparations for the World Cup. With the team scheduled to fly out of Pakistan early morning on Wednesday, visas had still not been issued to the squad as of close of working hours on Monday.
The Pakistan board has been in contact with the ICC about the matter all through, and on Monday, less than 48 hours before the team’s scheduled departure, it wrote to the ICC to complain, and say that such inequitable treatment to Pakistan – the only team participating at the World Cup without visas at the moment – will not be tolerated.
In the email, the PCB has asked the ICC what steps the global body intends to take to resolve the issue, and has also asked whether, in line with the obligations of a host board, written confirmations had been provided by the BCCI – or on behalf of the Indian government – that visas will be provided to all participating nations. The PCB has also raised the question of whether the inability to provide visas in time for the squad to travel constitutes a breach of the hosting agreement of the World Cup.
As things stand, Pakistan are due to fly out to Dubai in the early hours of Wednesday (September 27), transit there, and then travel to Hyderabad on Wednesday evening. Pakistan are scheduled to play their first warm-up game on Friday, against New Zealand, in Hyderabad.
“It’s a matter of disappointment that the Pakistan team has to go through this uncertainty ahead of the major tournament. We have been reminding [them] about their obligations from last three years and it has all come down to the last two days with our first warm game scheduled on September 29”
PCB statement
“There has been an extraordinary delay in getting clearance and securing Indian visas for the Pakistan team for ICC World Cup,” PCB spokesperson Umar Farooq said in a statement. “We have written to ICC raising our concerns about inequitable treatment towards Pakistan and reminding them of these obligations towards the World Cup.
“It’s a matter of disappointment that the Pakistan team has to go through this uncertainty ahead of the major tournament. We have been reminding [the organisers] about their obligations from last three years and it has all come down to the last two days with our first warm game scheduled on September 29. We were forced to cancel our original plan to organise team-building exercises in Dubai on the way to India. We have had to rework our plan and book new flights, but these plans are subject to issuance of visas.”
According to the PCB, the process for getting the visas began at the end of August, when the board received an invitation letter from the ICC, which formed a part of the application process. Because the Pakistan team was traveling to and from Sri Lanka for the Asia Cup of which it was officially the host, the PCB had sought to submit visa applications without physical passports in the first instance. But because passports were needed, the PCB applied finally on September 19, soon after the return of the squad from the Asia Cup.
Visas between the two countries are usually hostage to the tense relationship between their governments. Travel for citizens on either side to the other country has become extremely rare over the years as a result. Neither team has travelled to the other’s country for a bilateral series since Pakistan’s trip to India for a white-ball series in 2012-13, itself an outlier, amid a steady, often sharp, deterioration in relationships between the two countries since the Mumbai terror attacks in November 2008.
Pakistan have toured India once in the last ten years, but that was for the T20 World Cup in March 2016. The recent visit to Pakistan, during the Asia Cup, by BCCI president Roger Binny and vice-president Rajiv Shukla was the first by BCCI officials to Pakistan since 2008.
More to follow…
Osman Samiuddin is a senior editor at ESPNcricinfo