Recently Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) CEO Wasim Khan had tried to provoke an unnecessary reaction from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), after calling on the ICC to make sure that the Pakistani team gets the required visas for the 2021 T20 World Cup, to be hosted in India.
The PCB also set a deadline of January 2021 to get assurance from the ICC that there would be no roadblocks from the Indian government when it comes to issuing necessary visas to Pakistani cricketers. It mentioned the incident when last year, Pakistani shooters could not get visas for a World Cup in Delhi.
However, as per reports from ANI, the BCCI has dispelled any rumors of visa issues for Pakistanis and called the PCB CEO ignorant on the whole thing.
Speaking to ANI, an ICC spokesperson said that planning for the tournament was being made keeping in mind that all teams will be provided with visas.
"The Host Agreement for all ICC events, including the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021, provides that the host member will ensure visas are provided for all competing teams. The planning for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2021 in India is underway on that basis," the spokesperson said.
A BCCI official said that Khan seems to be ignorant, "I think that statement of the PCB CEO stemmed from ignorance. This issue was laid to rest last year itself when the GOI (Government of India) had written to the Presidents of the IOA and the IOC on the issue. So unless he is privy to some future course of action to be taken by Pakistan that would deteriorate the circumstances drastically, it is a non-issue."
The above-mentioned letter was issued on June 18, 2019, by then Sports Secretary Radhe Shyam Julaniya after a couple of Pakistan shooters were denied a visa to compete in the ISSF World Shooting Championship in Delhi.
The letter from Julaniya clearly stated that the country of origin of athletes wouldn't be a barrier for them to get visas to come and compete in international sporting events in the country.
"It's the policy of the government that India will hold international sporting events and will permit all qualified athletes belonging to any National Olympic Committee (NOC) recognized by IOC or any national federation affiliated to the international federation concerned to participate. Such participation of athletes shall be without prejudice to our principled positions and policies on other political matters including issues such as international recognition or otherwise of the country of origin of the athletes," Julaniya had written to Indian Olympic Association's (IOA) President Narinder Batra and marked a copy to IOC chief Thomas Bach.
(ANI reports)
