Binding moment

Srian OBEYESEKERE

Beyond words... Sangakkara embraces Mohammed Khalil.

Mohammed Khalil’s coming to Sri Lanka brought to life the bonds binding man to cricket.

The moment - their meeting up again hugely solemn; as much, moving for the Sri Lankan cricketers, whose lives had been virtually single handedly saved by Khalil, their bus driver from the terrorist attack during their tour of Pakistan last March.

This time in better confines at the cricket board, far flung from that dastardly Lahore scene; a very humane moment meeting up with one whom for once, unlike when they are usually the heart throbbing heroes from a game of cricket, was their unusual hero in paying back the man to whom they owed their very lives.

And there they were honouring him in an unison of great warmth as the big made Khalil grew largely in the eyes of not only our cricketers, but all Sri Lankans for his brave act; an act that had propelled him an overnight hero in the eyes of the cricketing world not for wielding a bat or bowling a ball, but for bravery in a life and death situation.

For former skipper Mahela Jayawardene and the rest of the Sri Lanka cricket team, who underwent that harrowing experience while on their way to the Lahore cricket stadium that morning, indeed last Monday was hugely a day of repaying Khalil; something so starkly demonstrated by the bear hug of the Pakistani by Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who was then deputy to Mahela.

Notably, it was Khalil’s longstanding service with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) that stood in good stead in serving the cause of cricket in a different field in so much as self admittedly realising how precious the lives of the Sri Lankans, who were ‘our guests’ were which spurred him on.

Moreover, Khalil’s presence also rekindled the strong cricketing ties that Sri Lanka has with Pakistan as a neighbouring sub-continent country; two cricketing nations that have bonded in a lasting marriage to cricket that has seen many great names emerge from it.

If Khalil’s visit to Sri Lanka, on the invitation of our newspaper company - the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited is an unforgettable occasion for the importance it carries, it would be something for this unusual hero to cherish; of a nation of which the people, hitherto unknown to him, making him their toast for a noble act that had rightfully propelled him to the top of the world.