Australian batter Usman Khawaja says he is “stranded” and unable to enter India due to visa issues.
The veteran left-hand opener posted on Instagram on Wednesday with a meme and the caption, “me waiting for my Indian visa like…” followed by a number of hashtags, including the words “stranded” and “standard”.
Australian players flew out of Sydney on Tuesday after attending the Allan Border Medal ceremony the night before.
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Cricket Australia told Wide World of Sports Khawaja is expected to have his visa cleared and fly to India on Thursday.
The 36-year-old was not scheduled to train on Thursday regardless, so his preparation is not expected to be significantly impacted.
Australia will play four Test matches against India, the first starting in Nagpur on February 9.
Khawaja has never played a Test in India but is the form batter in the Australian line-up, and was awarded the men’s Test Player of the Year award at the AB Medal night.
In 2022 he amassed an incredible 1080 runs at an average of 67.50 in Test cricket.
Khawaja also ran into visa trouble when he was attempting to fly to India in 2011 for the Champions League Twenty20 tournament.
Australian officials at the time suggested the issue had nothing to do with Khawaja’s Pakistani heritage.
Khawaja tweeted in 2011 about that incident.
“‘Indian visa department need to sort their issues out. Refusing to let me travel to India as an Australian, because I wasn’t born here. Wow,” he said in 2011.
Wide World of Sports is not suggesting this new incident has anything to do with Khawaja’s heritage.
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