New Delhi: British spinner Rehan Ahmed was stopped from entering India on Monday as he only had a single-entry visa, Sportstar reported. The England team members were returning from Abu Dhabi after a 10-day break between the second and third test of the ongoing series with India when the incident took place.

“The England team has been advised to process the visa again which will be happening in the next two days. The player was allowed to enter the country with the rest of the team and he will be appearing in practice on Tuesday,” a BCCI official was quoted by Hindustan Times.

Out of the 31 members who were re-entering India from Abu Dhabi, only Rehan did not have the right visa, as per the Hindustan Times report. It is noteworthy that in a similar incident another cricketer of the England team, Shoaib Bashir faced delayed arrival due to visa issue and missed the initial Test at Hyderabad about 10 days back.

Australian opener Usman Khawaja, who also has Pakistani origins, had faced visa issues in last February. In November, two former England players with Pakistani parents were unable to secure visas to play in a veterans’ world series league in India. Similarly, the Pakistan cricket team and even fans from the neighbouring country faced difficulties with the visa for the cricket world cup last year, despite the International Cricket Council (ICC) being involved.

Also read: Cricketer Shoaib Bashir’s Visa Problems Are Problems of Hindutva Politics

A temporary immigration counter was set up in the Rajkot airport as it was the first instance where an international flight landed there directly.

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