NEW DELHI: The organizers of the 50-overs World Cup in India are working to secure visas for fans and media from Pakistan, the governing International Cricket Council (ICC) said after complaints from the Pakistan board.
Visas for the Pakistan team were granted barely 48 hours before they left for what is their first tour of India since the T20 World Cup in 2016.
Cricket has been a victim of a soured political relationship between the neighbors and bitter rivals, who play each other only in multi-team events like the World Cup.
The Babar Azam-led team were pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome they received in Hyderabad, but they have lamented a lack of support from the stands as their fans remain stranded in Pakistan.
\u201cThis is an obligation of our host and they are working hard on it with our full support,\u201d an ICC spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
\u201cEvery effort is being made to get this sorted.\u201d
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said in a statement on Friday that the visa delay had put the PCB \u201cunder immense pressure.\u201d
\u201cPCB is disappointed to see that Pakistani journalists and fans are facing uncertainty about obtaining an Indian visa to cover Pakistan\u2019s opening game in the ICC World Cup,\u201d it said.
\u201cTheir presence not only adds vibrancy to the stadium but also contributes to the global coverage and appreciation of the game.
\u201cWe have been reminding ICC about their obligations and members\u2019 agreement on issuing visas for fans and journalists for the last three years and continue to raise concerns with all relevant authorities.\u201d
Pakistan began their campaign on the field with an easy victory over the Netherlands on Friday. They next take on Sri Lanka in a match between two former champions on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI: The organizers of the 50-overs World Cup in India are working to secure visas for fans and media from Pakistan, the governing International Cricket Council (ICC) said after complaints from the Pakistan board.Visas for the Pakistan team were granted barely 48 hours before they left for what is their first tour of India<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2108,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106\/revisions\/2108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajmantimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}