Shoaib Bashir | Surprise package Premium
The Hindu
Shoaib Bashir, a young cricketer of Pakistani origin, faces visa issues and is unable to join the England team for their tour of India.
Shoaib Bashir’s eyes welled up when he was told over the phone by England coach Brendon McCullum that he had been selected for the tour of India. His uncle Saj, a former wicketkeeper-batter who played a key role in his cricketing career, was overcome with emotions too, Bashir told The Guardian.
Saj told Bashir that he was living his dream through him. For the 20-year-old, getting selected to the England team, that too at a time when it is playing a revolutionary brand of Test cricket called Bazball — the fearless, attacking style named after McCullum’s nickname Baz — must indeed have felt like a dream.
But days before Bashir was scheduled to travel to India for the five-match Test series, that dream turned into a nightmare. He was stranded in Abu Dhabi, while the rest of the squad and the support staff boarded the plane to India.
The England team had chosen to do a preparatory camp in the Gulf nation rather than India, where it was scheduled to play the first Test without even one warm-up match. But that is not unusual during these days of non-stop cricket, with multi-formats and franchise-based leagues around the world.
Bashir was forced to stay back in Abu Dhabi because his visa application had not been approved yet, while that of everyone else was. The issue was his Pakistani origin.
It was not the first time a cricketer of Pakistani origin was having issues in getting the Indian visa. Last year, Australia’s batter Usman Khawaja, who was born in Islamabad, could travel to India only after his 17 teammates did, for the Test series.
Before that, England all-rounder Moeen Ali had to miss the first match of Chennai Super Kings in the IPL in 2022. Another England player Saqib Mahmood had to be withdrawn from the England Lions — the developmental team, like India-A — in 2019 after he failed to get his visa in time.
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