Reports: Pakistan to play their league games of T20 World Cup 2021 in Kolkata

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is all set to host the 2021 edition of the ICC T20 World Cup in India in October-November. A few days back, there were speculations that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was planning to request the International Cricket Council (ICC) to change the venue from India to the United Arab Emirates as they feared that India will not provide visas to Pakistan players.

Ehsan Mani, the PCB Chief, even asked for a written assurance from the ICC that India will grant their players visas for the T20 mega event. He also stated that ICC has promised PCB that they will be provided with the assurance within this month.

“I have informed the board that the BCCI was supposed to give us visa assurances by 31st December but that didn’t happen because their President, Sourav Ganguly was twice hospitalized,” Mani said at the media conference.

Meanwhile, it is learned that the Indian government has provided permission to the BCCI to grant visas to the Pakistan players for the mega event. BCCI received the permission during their general council meeting. However, there is still no clarity over whether the Pakistan fans will be able to travel to India to watch the games live.

“The visa issue of Pakistan cricket team has been sorted. However, whether the fans can travel across the border to watch matches is still not clear. It will be decided in due course of time. However, we had promised ICC that it will be sorted. The secretary announced during the meeting,” a member of the Apex Council was quoted as saying in India Today.

BCCI selects nine potential venues for T20 World Cup

Meanwhile, a report suggests that the Indian board has decided to host all the league matches of the Men in Green in Kolkata due to security concerns. BCCI doesn’t want to take any kind of risk and thus can fix just one venue for the matches involving Pakistan. As of now, the teams are divided into two groups

For the main event, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, West Indies, and two qualifying teams are part of Group 1 whereas India, South Africa, Afghanistan, England, and two qualifying teams are placed in Group 2. Dharamsala, Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Delhi, and Hyderabad have been selected as the potential venues for the T20 World Cup while the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad is likely to host the final.