By Fakir Hassen, IANS,
Johannesburg : For South African cricketer Loots Bosman it was a case of third time lucky – after failing twice to enter India to join the Mumbai Indians and play in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Bosman, who would have played for the Mumbai Indians in Chennai Wednesday evening, instead found himself heading back home on the same plane that had brought him to Mumbai Wednesday morning after the Indian customs authorities, reportedly finding his papers not in order, refused him entry.
Team mates Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith, who arrived on the same flight, were allowed to proceed to their connecting flights before Bosman could seek their intervention.
“We (Bosman and customs officials) could not understand each other, because they were talking in their language only,” Bosman told the Afrikaans daily Beeld here Thursday. “They were difficult and would not listen to anything. However hard I tried to explain, they just hurried me on, because the flight that I had arrived on was leaving immediately.”
Bosman said he told the officials that it just required a call to the Indian cricket authorities to clear the matter up. “But nobody from the Board of Control for Cricket in India was available at that time (2 a.m. Wednesday morning).
A visit to the Indian High Commission here on his return quickly got the matter sorted out and Bosman was headed back to Mumbai Thursday, from where he will go to Mohali, where his team plays Friday.
Bosman had tried to get to India last weekend also, but had failed to secure a flight after being on standby.