KARACHI: The first batch of 50 Pakistanis, including six cricketers and four table tennis players will reach Pakistan via Sri Lanka airline today.

As per the information available to this correspondent those holding valid tickets of Sri Lanka airline were accommodated on this cargo flight which will touch two destinations in Pakistan on Tuesday, Karachi and Lahore.

An official at the Pakistan High Commission, in Colombo, has further said that their efforts were afoot to facilitate all Pakistanis stuck in Sri Lanka due to the breakout of Covid-19 which resulted in the suspension of flight operations.

Seven first-class cricket players amongst the Pakistan-bound batch are Kashif Naveed, Ahsan Beg, Mohtashim Ali, Qaisar Ashraf, Ali Mehar and Faizan Khan.

There are four table tennis, too, coming along and those include Absar Ali (Peshawar), Iqra Rehman (Chitral), Hiba Iqbal (Sawabi) and Haya Noor (Sawabi).

The table tennis players have been in Sri Lanka for about a month under an exchange programme between Pakistan and Sri Lanka facilitated by the Tourism and Sports Directorate in Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It is pertinent to mention here that in total there are 99 stranded Pakistanis in Sri Lanka and the Pakistan High Commission said that the rest would be facilitated to travel back to Pakistan soon.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2020