PCB slams Indian authorities over visas

PCB chairman Shaharyar Khan met BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla and DDCA president Arun Jaitley on Saturday to register his protest.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has slammed the Indian authorities accusing them of only issuing visas for Mohali to Pakistan cricket fans and not to the other matches in the current cricket series.

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In a press release issued on Sunday, the PCB said its chairman Shaharyar Khan met Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) vice-president Rajiv Shukla and Delhi and District Cricket Association president Arun Jaitley on Saturday when he registered his protest.

"At the meeting, the chairman registered PCB's disappointment that except for the Mohali Test, where 3,500 visas were issued to Pakistani cricket fans, not a single visa had been issued for the Test at Kolkata and any of the ODI's in Kochi, Vishakapatnam, Jamshedpur and Ahmedabad because the tickets were not printed in time for visas to be given by the Indian High Commission," the PCB said in the release.

"Unlike Pakistan, tickets in India could not be purchased for Indian venues on the internet. For the Bangalore Test, tickets had to be physically collected from the Karnataka Cricket Association so that a limited numbers of visas could be issued at the eleventh hour."

The Indian authorities had promised to issue 8,500 cricket visas for the series. American Express, PCB's official travel agents, had setup offices in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi but had to face the public wrath, after they failed to provide the travel visas for Bangalore, in particular.

The PCB said DDCA has promised to deliver 2,500 tickets for the sixth and last one-dayer between the two countries scheduled to be held on April 17th.