Pakistan bowler left without UK work visa at start of season
April 15 2009 by Ranjan Chakraborty
Pakistani cricket bowler, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, is still awaiting his UK visa which will allow him to work in the UK as a professional cricket player for the Yorkshire team this season.
He met with authorities on 31 March to discuss the issue, but has still not received a visa after two weeks. Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire Director of Professional Cricket says, I told him to ring as soon as he received any news and I haven’t heard anything... At the moment he hasn’t got the necessary paperwork. I am sure he will get a work permit at some point, I just don’t know when.”
Other foreign players have had similar trouble obtaining their work visas to play cricket but there are some concerns that the fact Rana is from Pakistan may be adding to is problems moving to the UK.
Moxon says, “the process is a little bit more involved now but we have had the same situation with Jacques [Rudolph] and Deon [Kruis]. They didn’t take two weeks to get theirs… There have been problems in Pakistan recently with the bombings and the Sri Lanka thing. Whether that is a factor towards it being delayed, I don’t know.”
Rana was due to arrive in the UK during the first week in April and may now miss the start of the season due to the visa hold-up.
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