A narrow escape for Bangladesh Cricket team in New Zealand’s Christ church

Over forty people are reported to have been killed in a shoot out in New Zealand in a mosque, the country’s Prime Minister reported but a cricket national team was lucky to have escaped the attack.

The Bangladesh cricket team have escaped a fatal shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, that left 30 people dead.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said 10 more people were killed in a shooting at another mosque in the city, while 20 are seriously injured.

The Bangladesh team arrived at the Al Noor mosque, near the Hagley Oval – the venue of Saturday’s now cancelled third Test – when the shooting started.

“Entire team got saved from active shooters,” tweeted batsman Tamim Iqbal.

Wicketkeeper batsman Mushfiqur Rahim tweeted: “we r extremely lucky…never want to see this things happen again.”Bangladesh Cricket says the team are “safely back in the hotel”.

Mohammed Isam, the Bangladesh correspondent for ESPN, told the BBC he was with the players at the time of the shooting.

“I saw them get out of the parking lot, within five minutes one of the players [Iqbal] called me for help – he said save us, we are in big trouble someone is shooting.” said Isam.

“I didn’t take him seriously at first but then his voice was cracking up and I just ran for it. I tried to run all the way and I got a lift from someone and I reached the incident.

“I tried to charge towards the team bus, which I saw from about 100 yards, I thought just go near to what was happening, there was live shooting going on at that time, there was fire – I saw one dead body and one person running towards me with a bloodied shoulder.

“By the time I got close to the park, the players had disembarked from the bus, they were running towards me and just telling me to get out of there.

“We ran through the park and headed back to the ground for safety and were there for about an hour.”

He added: “The players were breaking down, they had seen way too much in the 15 minutes they were held up in the bus, there was no security because it is such a peaceful country.”

“The players heard shots being fired, they saw people tumbling out of the gates and ducked under the bus.”

“We’ve cancelled the game,” said New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White. “I’ve spoken to my counterpart at Bangladesh cricket – we agree it’s inappropriate to play cricket at this time.

“Both teams are deeply affected. As a country, we’ll have to look at [security of visiting teams]. It seemed to be a safe haven. I’m sure all of New Zealand will take a look at their approach.”

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