England ran into additional visa issues during their tour of India when Rehan Ahmed was denied permission to leave Hirasar airport in Rajkot due to a lack of proper documentation.
According to Sportstar, Rehan was barred from returning to India following England’s mid-series break in Abu Dhabi due to his single-entry visa. Following a delay, local officials were able to reach a short-term solution for the legspinner, with England hoping that the issue would be resolved completely over the next 24 hours. By Monday evening, all travelling squad members and support staff had arrived at the team hotel in Rajkot.
“We were advised, on returning to India, that there was paperwork discrepancy with Rehan Ahmed’s visa,” the ECB said via a statement on Tuesday morning. “The local authorities at Rajkot Airport were supportive, enabling Rehan 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 problem arises shortly after Shoaib Bashir’s arrival in India was delayed by a week due to the late issuance of his visa, resulting in his missing the first Test in Hyderabad. Bashir, of Pakistani descent, came on January 28 – day four of the first Test – after originally staying in Abu Dhabi, where England conducted their pre-tour training camp, before returning to the UK to have his visa issued. He went on to make his debut in the second Test at Visakhapatnam.
Rehan, like Bashir, was born in England and is of Pakistani descent, but he had no problem entering the country due to a visa he obtained in October as a stand-by for England’s 50-over World Cup squad. As a result, considering that the white-ball squad remained in India for the length of their World Cup campaign, which finished in the group stages, this was very certainly a clerical error on the part of the ECB.
“The England team has been advised to process the visa again which will be happening in the next two days,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times. “The player was allowed to enter the country with the rest of the team and he will be appearing in practice on Tuesday.”
In any case, it is a situation that should not have occurred given the high-profile nature of Bashir’s trauma, as well as the fact that England’s six-day break in the UAE between the second and third Tests, which begin on Thursday, had been planned for months.
Ollie Robinson disclosed previously on Monday that he only acquired his visa on the morning of England’s initial flight to Hyderabad from Abu Dhabi last month, after learning the night before from squad manager Wayne Bentley that a paperwork issue had caused a delay. “He said, ‘your visa has been denied’ or something,” Robinson recounted on his podcast, Chatting Balls.
“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’.”
Rehan has appeared in both series matches thus far, taking eight wickets at 36.37 and scored 70 runs at 17.80, including a cameo of 23 at No. 3 in England’s unsuccessful chase of 399 in the second test.
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