Pakistan’s intentions for a pre-World Cup
team-building trip to Dubai have been scrapped since, as of Friday, the team
still needed permits to enter India.
Prior to their first warm-up match against New Zealand
on September 29, the Pakistani team was scheduled to fly to Hyderabad early the
next week after spending a few days in the UAE. Pakistan currently intends to
depart from Lahore early on Wednesday in order to fly to Dubai, and then from
there to Hyderabad. There does seem to be general trust that the visas will
arrive in time for Pakistan to leave, despite one official calling the
situation “alarming.” It’s believed that the visa application was
submitted more than a week ago.
Of the nine teams travelling to India for the World
Cup, Pakistan is the only one who has not yet received their visas. The delay
does draw attention to the convoluted and volatile political environment in
which the team is visiting India. Because getting visas is a laborious and
frequently unproductive process, travel between the two nations is very limited
for citizens of both sides.
It is now uncommon to cross the border for cricket.
Since Pakistan’s journey to India for a white-ball series in 2012–13, no side
has visited the other nation for a bilateral series. As relations between the
two nations have steadily, if occasionally abruptly, deteriorated since the
Mumbai bombings in November 2008, the trip itself was an anomaly. Pakistan has
previously visited India once in the last ten years, but that was for the T20
World Cup in March 2016.
Next Friday’s exhibition match between Pakistan and
New Zealand will be played behind closed doors in Hyderabad due to insufficient
security assurances from the authorities. Around the time of that game, there
are two significant religious celebrations in the city.
Only two members of Pakistan’s current team had
previously visited India for a cricket match: Mohammad Nawaz, who was a member
of the team that represented Pakistan at the 2016 T20 World Cup, and Agha
Salman, who was a member of the Lahore Lions team that competed in the
Champions League T20.