Ian Bishop's Miraculous Escape

Earlier this month in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, a suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a bus parked outside the Sheraton Hotel. The blast killed 14 people and also forced the cancellation of series between Pakistan and New Zealand which was scheduled to start that morning. The Sheraton had been playing host to both teams.

Ian Bishop, the former Trinidad and Tobago and West Indies fast bowler, was doing television commentary on the series for Trans World International (TWI). He was also a guest at the hotel. That morning, he was late for breakfast. A minute late. In that minute, the breakfast area was blasted...

"Scary" is the one word he could find to describe the experience. As he relates his story, I quickly understand why. He first recounted how his fateful day began.

It was a morning really like any other. It was a morning that I?d made plans to get down to breakfast for 7.45 to leave at 8.30 because I didn?t want to rush. So I was standing in my room dressed, polishing my shoes. I looked at my watch and I saw 7.44 and I thought, God I?m a minute late to get down to breakfast according to the agenda that I had set myself. And as soon as I had turned away from my watch and started polishing again, I heard this enormous, enormous bang.?

He described the explosion:

"It was so loud, I heard the bang first and then I heard the doors shatter and fall to the ground in my room. And then I felt something almost push me across the room, the force of the explosion. Initially I thought it might have been a generator exploding underneath my level. (on the fifth floor) I sort of sat back on the bed after I?d been pushed and I thought, ?what was that!? because it certainly gave me a jump coming out of nowhere. And then I looked through the curtains from sitting on the bed, and I saw it began to get a bit dusty outside, then I started to hear sirens and I thought, this is not a generator, this is a bomb."

He continued: "I said, what is the likelihood of it going off again. Well, slightly none, so I just put down my shoes and I just sat there for a while.

My phone rang, a couple of the other commentators called to ask if I was okay. They were by the pool, they rushed down to the poolside where they felt safe.

"I just sort of walked up to where my window was supposed to be, or sliding doors and I looked outside and I could see something on the pavement which ultimately turned out to be human remains or something like that. But I couldn?t see the full picture because of the covering of the hotel below. I decided there and then I would go down to the other guys at the swimming pool. And when I got down there, I think the whole first floor of the hotel, all the glass, the windows, the glass enclosures of the breakfast room were all blown away. There was this bus outside torn to bits?It was a bit scary..."

I tried to imagine the scene as he described the chaos, especially the traumatised hotel staff running around, some with blood on their clothes.

The picture was just as gory when, about two hours later, Bishop and his colleagues ventured outside to view the blood-covered, exploded bus.

"It had been cleaned up a lot since then. There was a big crater in the road from where the bomb exploded."

The next step was to get out. "Promptly at five o?clock," Bishop and his colleagues left the Sheraton for the airport.

He said within half-hour of the blast, there was, "no doubt whatsoever," the tour was over.

"Prior to coming back to Karachi after the First Test, we had heard a rumour that the Test match would have been shifted to another ground, and when we enquired, they said it was only a rumour, it wasn?t true. But obviously, there might have been some thought about moving the Test match because of bombs that had gone off prior. So once that bomb had gone off, we knew about the fears of teams going to Pakistan?and once that happened, we knew everyone was going to be off, we certainly weren?t going to stick around."

Personally though for Bishop, a devoted believer, he would have remained had the tour not been cancelled.

"I would have stayed. I would not have protested too much."

There was much criticism in Pakistan for the West Indies Cricket Board?s decision not to send their team there last November, but to instead play in Sharjah.

And only last week, Pakistan stars, Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram, pleaded with the Australian cricketers not to abandon their scheduled tour later this year.

But Bishop cannot see the Pakistanis convincing anyone. "You?re not chosen to fight war, you?re not chosen to be blown up in a bus and I think teams are quite right not to go if they don?t feel safe."

He went further: "I don?t see any teams going there, not in a hurry, not for the rest of the year, probably not next year until there is an absolute guarantee. And nobody can guarantee that a suicide bomber is (not) going to turn up at any point in time...That was really close to home!

The New Zealand team were right there. Five minutes again and they were supposed to leave, they could have been caught up in this situation..."

For Bishop himself, his narrow escape reminded him of one of life?s cold realities.

"In reflecting, had I been in the breakfast room where the bus was parked just outside when this car ran into it, and how close that blast would have affected where I would have been sitting having breakfast, then I started to think?It really brought me very, very close to understanding how easy it is for us to get involved in accidents and really depart this life...Made me more aware of my mortality."

SOURCE: Trinidad Express.