On Saturday (16th March), Bangladesh cricketers landed at Dhaka and headed their homes. Just one day earlier, the Bangladesh cricketers narrowly escaped a horrific terrorist attack in a Christchurch mosque.
On last Friday (15th March), a terrorist group attacked in two mosques in the Christchurch city. Around 49 people were killed, and many people were injured in that incident.
The Bangladesh cricketers were heading to the Al Noor Mosque when that mosque was attacked. They arrived at the mosque little late due to the delay in Bangladesh captain Mahmudullah’s press conference.
Many Bangladesh players believe that they were lucky not to face that horrific and life-threatening experience. When they were coming out from the bus, two women informed them about that incident. They stayed on the bus for some more minutes before they ran away to the cricket ground through the Hagley Park.
The players also requested the bus driver to go back, but he denied to return due to he had no such instruction.
The Bangladesh team was in Christchurch for the third and final Test match of the tour. The match was schehduled to start on Saturday, but that match was cancelled after that incident. Soon, the Bangladesh cricketers have been allowed to return their home.
It will certainly take some time for us to get out of it – Tamim Iqbal
On late Saturday, the Bangladesh cricket team landed at Dhaka airport. The opening batsman Tamim Iqbal believes that it will take time to get out from this dangerous experience.
He said at Christchurch airport, “It will certainly take some time for us to get out of it after the experience we had here. It is better that we are returning… because everyone’s family is worried. I just hope after returning home we can overcome it with the passing of time.”
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that they would review the security matters properly of the host countries before sending their national team in the future tours.
She said, “In future, whenever we send our cricket team abroad we will do that after examining and reviewing the security matters of the host countries.”
Bangladesh had hard luck in New Zealand tour
Before that incident, Bangladesh cricketers were busy for the international series in that New Zealand tour. They toured the country for the three-match bilateral ODI series and three-match bilateral Test series against the host side.
The visiting side lost the ODI series by the 3-0 margin. Among those ODIs, one was at the Hagley Oval (Christchurch) that New Zealand won by eight wickets (second ODI). The other two ODIs were at Napier and Dunedin where the host side won by eight wickets and 88 runs respectively.
There was no progress from the Bangladesh side in the subsequent Test series. New Zealand won the first two Tests very comfortably and won the series by 2-0. The host side won the first Test at Hamilton by an innings & 52 runs. Later, they won the rain-affected Wellington Test by an innings & 12 runs.