County Championship 2022: Cheteshwar Pujara unavailable for Sussex's opening game due to visa delay

Cheteshwar Pujara (Image Credits: Getty)

Indian Test batter Cheteshwar Pujara will miss the first game of his Sussex stint due to visa issues, triggered indirectly by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, Sussex's performance director Keith Greenfield has confirmed that he will be there by the end of the week.

The right-handed batter was expected to make his debut against Nottinghamshire on Thursday. Nevertheless, the Saurashtra batter will be available for Sussex's game against Derbyshire the following week due to a delay in receiving his visa.

Excited to join the Sussex family, and looking forward to contributing to the Club's success this county season 👍 twitter.com/SussexCCC/stat…

Greenfield admitted that having overseas players has been challenging in recent times and that the current scenario has changed the visa requirements. He told ESPN Cricinfo.

"Securing overseas players has been tremendously difficult in the current climate. We renegotiated the initial Pujara contract so he could return for more County Championship and Royal London 50-over matches, and this subsequently changed the visa requirements."

Greenfield continued by saying:

"On top of this, the Ukraine crisis has meant that the Home Office has redirected their resources to help with the displacement of Ukrainian citizens. We were expecting Pujara to be with us last weekend but can now confirm he will be here at the back end of this week."

Along with Ajinkya Rahane, Pujara faced the axe for India's recent Test win series against Sri Lanka due to a lack of runs. The veteran was initially due to play the first six games of the County Championship season before returning later in the summer for the Royal London 50-over tournament. The 34-year old has previously played red ball cricket for Yorkshire.

Ollie Robinson to miss Sussex's first game of season

Meanwhile, the ECB rendered England's latest seam-bowling sensation Ollie Robinson unavailable for Sussex's opening game. The right-arm seamer missed all three Tests in the West Indies due to back spasms.

A difficult defeat to take because I really think there were a lot of positives to come from the way we played for the vast majority of this series. Thank you to our amazing fans out here in the Caribbean and congratulations to Kraigg and his team. https://t.co/5Hqc1d3sjp

England had a torrid tour of the West Indies, losing the five-match T20 series and the three-Test rubber as well.

After two drawn results in Antigua and Barbados, the visitors suffered a dramatic batting collapse in Grenada and lost by ten wickets.