Bangladesh team manager reveals how they escaped Christchurch mosque shooting

The world was in shock and awe after mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch killed 49 persons on Friday.

The cricketing world was in dismay after it was learnt that the Bangladesh cricket team, which were on their tour of New Zealand were supposed to attend the mosque for the Friday prayer, however, fortunately the team escaped unscathed.

The Bangladesh cricket team manager Khaled Mashud, told reporters how they escaped the deadly shooting.

"This was a kind of accident that we would never expect nor want in any part of the world," Mashud said, quoted ESPNcricinfo. "We are very lucky because we had a number of us, about 17 of us, in the bus. Soumya Sarkar was also there, and we were all heading to the mosque for prayers. Only two of the players [Liton Das and Nayeem Hasan, as well as Sunil Joshi, the spin-bowling coach] had stayed back in the hotel, and rest of the squad had gone there. We were very close to the mosque, and we could see from the bus. We must have been about 50 yards from the mosque.

"I would say we were really lucky. Had we reached even three or four minutes earlier, we probably would have been inside the mosque. This could then have been a massive incident. We are very thankful that we weren't caught in the crossfire, but what we saw was straight out of a movie scene. We could see bloodstained people staggering out of the mosque. Maybe for about eight-ten minutes, we were all inside the bus and were sitting with our heads bowed, just in case someone fires at us."

"We are very thankful that we weren't caught in the crossfire, but what we saw was straight out of a movie scene. We could see bloodstained people staggering out of the mosque"

Mashud revealed that the team was initially barred from leaving the bus, but after a while, they ran through Hagley Park to the ground and went back to the team hotel.

"When we realised that the shooters could have inflicted more damage if they had found us inside the bus all at once, we took a collective decision to escape through the back gate," Mashud said.

The series between New Zealand and Bangladesh had been called off.