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England’s 20-year-old spinner Shoaib Bashir has received his visa and will travel to India on the weekend. Bashir had to fly back to England from United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to visa issues which prevented him from travelling to India for the Test series.
“Shoaib Bashir has now received his visa, and is due to travel to join up with the team in India this weekend,” the England Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed in a statement.
“We're glad the situation has now been resolved.”
Bashir will not take part in the first Test in Hyderabad as England have already named the playing XI. In Bashir’s absence, left-arm spinner Tom Hartley will make his Test debut on January 25.
The second Test is scheduled to be played at Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam.
Earlier in the day, England captain Ben Stokes said that he considered not flying to India until Bashir got his visa. However, there was never a chance that he would miss the Test series opener.
“When I first found the news out in Abu Dhabi, I did say we shouldn’t fly until Bash (Bashir) gets his visa but that was a little bit tongue in cheek,” the all-rounder said.
“I know it’s a way bigger thing, doing that. That was probably just (my) emotions around the whole thing. There was never a chance that we were not going to travel around this but Bash knows he’s had our full support.
“I’m pretty devastated that Bash has had to go through this. As a leader, as a captain, when one of your team-mates is affected by something like that you do get a bit emotional.
“I know he’s back in London and a lot of people are jumping through hoops to try and get this through quicker. Hopefully we’re going to see him here over the weekend.”
England's Playing XI for first Test: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, (c) Jonny Bairstow, Ben Foakes (wk), Tom Hartley, Rehan Ahmed, Mark Wood, Jack Leach
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