Star Australian batter Usman Khawaja, who missed the flight to India for the upcoming Border Gavaskar Trophy, was belatedly granted Visa as he embarked on his journey on February 2 (Thursday) for the four-match Test series which is slated to be played from February 9. It was learned that the visa application of Khawaja was forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi. It needed some time for the MEA to issue clearances to Khawaja and the Indian High Commission in Canberra got a message from New Delhi. It was immediately relayed to the Indian Consulate in Melbourne who promptly thereafter issued his visa.
Khawaja will join the Australian squad who along with their support staff left for the team's training base in Bengaluru on two separate flights on Tuesday and Wednesday. The left-handed opening batter took a flight from Melbourne to Bengaluru on Thursday.
After boarding the flight, Khawaja shared a post on Instagram and captioned it: "India, meh arah hoon (India, I am coming)".
Cricket fans around the world are licking their lips in anticipation of watching India's red-ball series against Australia. The four-match Test series between India and Australia kicks off on February 09 with the first game scheduled to be played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur.
The upcoming Border-Gavaskar series will be extremely crucial for India as they want to make one final push to qualify for the World Test Championship (WTC) final. Rohit Sharma's men are currently second on the WTC standings while the Baggy Greens are at the summit.
Border Gavaskar Trophy 2023 schedule:
1st Test at Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur - February 9-13
2nd Test at Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi - February 17-21
3rd Test at Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala - March 1-5
4th Test at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad - March 9-13
India’s squad for the first two Tests vs Australia: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.
Australia Test squad for India tour: Pat Cummins (capt), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.
