Senior Bangladesh batsman Tamim Iqbal believes that it will take some time for the team to come out of the trauma that they suffered after narrowly escaping a shooting incident at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on Friday.
“It will certainly take some time for us to get out of it following the experience that we had here,” Tamim told reporters at the airport on Saturday. “It is better that we are returning back to our family because everyone’s family is worried. I just hope after returning home we can overcome it [trauma] with the passing of time.”
The Bangladesh cricket team left Christchurch on Saturday as the series-concluding third Test was cancelled following the aftermath as both the countries decided that the prevailing condition was not appropriate to host the last Test, scheduled from March 16.
In the brutal shootout, carried out at two different mosques, at least 49 people were killed while 40 others were injured. The incident prompted New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to term it a ‘terrorist attack’ and ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’.
The Bangladesh team was believed to be de-boarding the bus to arrive at the mosque when they witnessed a wounded woman fall in front of them. They were then cautioned by another woman, in a car, about the shooting inside the parameters of the mosque.
Bangladesh team manager Khaled Mashud had described the team’s narrow escape in the Christchurch terror incident as ‘being in a movie’, with bleeding people running out of the building to escape the shooter while the team was hauled up in the bus just a few yards away from the mosque.
BCB and NZC hastily made arrangements so that the Bangladeshi squad members could leave New Zealand as soon as possible as they believed it was the only way they could come out from the mental ordeal. The security in an around the team increased remarkably from the team hotel to the airport.
