Pakistan given permission to participate in World T20

© Getty

The Pakistan squad has been given permission to participate in the World T20, the Pakistan Cricket Board announced on Friday (March 11).

Sourav Ganguly, the Cricket Association of Bengal president, submitted a letter from Mamta Bannerjee, the West Bengal chief minister, to the International Cricket Council and then the Interior Ministry cleared the team to travel to Kolkata for the tournament. Both men's and women's team will now travel to India to participate in the tournament.

Najam Sethi, the PCB chief, said it was left it to the players to chose if they want to travel to India for the tournament."I assured the players that if some player doesn't want to go and considers it a threat to travel to India, we will withdraw the player," said Sethi in a press conference. "I assured that players that it won't be held against them.

"We have missed one warm-up match but that was against a local team. We will play a warm-up game after we land there."

Sethi acknowledged that he spoke to Ganguly before sending the team. "I spoke to Sourav Ganguly and he assured me that they will provide full security to the team," he said. "Ganguly told me that there won't be any problem in Kolkata and we believe Mohali is safe for our players as well."

Pakistan were scheduled to play India on March 19 but the match was moved to Kolkata after Virbhadra Singh, the Himachal Pradesh chief minister, said that the state government won't be able to provide full security to the Pakistan team. Following that a three-member team visited Dharamsala and were happy with the arrangements at the venue but were worried about the players' movement outside the ground.

Kolkata and Mohali were proposed as alternate venues for the match and after much deliberation, David Richardson, the ICC chief executive officer, announced on March 9 that the Eden Gardens has been chosen as the venue.

Pakistan are in Group 2 with India, Australia, New Zealand and will also play against either Bangladesh or Oman in a bid to make it to the semifinal of the tournament.