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England cricketer Shoaib Bashir will finally arrive in India for the five-match Test series on Wednesday. An England and Wales Cricket Board spokesman confirmed that Bashir has received his visa and the England cricketer is due to travel to join the team in India this weekend. At a time when England have kickstarted its Test series preparations without Bashir, former cricketer David Lloyd has urged the visitors to either ignore the visa row or leave India.
Somerset spinner Bashir is set to miss the first Test between India and England in Hyderabad. India will meet England in the Test series opener on Thursday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. Speaking about Bashir’s visa issue, England skipper Ben Stokes said that he was “frustrated” by the delay with the arrival of his teammate. Known for speaking his mind, former cricketer Lloyd opined that the ECB has a decision to make over Bashir’s visa issue.
‘Tell India they will not start the Test series until…’
“The ECB have a decision to make over the treatment of Shoaib Bashir – either ignore it and carry on, tell India they will not start the Test series until their full complement of players is present, or bring the England team home. It is a decision they should be thinking very seriously about and the latter two options should most definitely be on the table,” Lloyd wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.
“I don’t think we have ever stopped an Indian cricketer from coming here to play. Why are they stopping an English one for no apparent reason, other than his Pakistani heritage? Sadly, Usman Khawaja suffered for the same reason last year, arriving 36 hours behind his Australian team-mates for a four-Test tour,” he added.
‘England need to stand up and support Bashir’
Earlier, Usman Khawaja’s Indian visa was delayed last year for a Test series. Australia toured India for the 2023 edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the time. Lloyd pointed out that England’s England Test squad was picked in early December. “So they will have got to work immediately with the visas. They have had over a month. Bashir is an England cricketer, the same as the other 15 players in the squad. We need to stand up and support him,” he continued.
England touched down India without Bashir as the off-spinner remained in Abu Dhabi. Instead of playing warm-up games in India, Stokes and Co. practised in Abu Dhabi for the five-match series against Rohit Sharma’s men. Finishing the required paperwork, spinner Bashir had to fly back to London from Abu Dhabi before he received his visa for India.
‘India are stopping one of our players’
“My view is that they should delay Thursday’s scheduled start of the first Test until he gets there. India are stopping one of our players from playing. They have made him ineligible for selection by forcing him home to try to get the necessary paperwork through. It is a journey he should not need to make. It beggars belief that the delay has gone on for so long that he is now unavailable for the first Test in Hyderabad,” Lloyd added.
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