The Pakistan cricket team met with survivors of the Christchurch terror attack yesterday, nearly two years on from the tragedy.
Victims and their families were invited to Hagley Oval on the eve of the second test to meet the cricketers.
Pakistan manager Mansoor Rana said the meeting had been planned ahead of their trip to New Zealand.
“It was great to hear the real story from some of the guys and that was very heart-touching,” he said.
Nine of the 51 people killed on March 15, 2019 were Pakistani Muslims, including Mahummod Ali’s brother-in-law Syed.
The pair had a mutual love of cricket, especially the Pakistani national side.
“We can't explain it in words. They give us so much respect, they play for us,” Ali told 1 NEWS.
Today’s meeting was a dream come true for Ali, who was gifted a cap by one of his sporting heroes, Younis Khan.
The cap was given to him by the Pakistan Cricket Board, with “some signed caps as well for the widows [and] some signed balls for the children”, he said.
The families also received free tickets to the test, with Ali gushing that the Pakistan team was “a very good team”.
“You never know whenever they do miracles,” he said.
The meeting was an experience neither side is likely to forget.
“After sharing all those thoughts and the kids, when they got those caps, when they were meeting Younis Khan and plenty of their stars which they've only watched on TV, so within an hour, we felt like we were just one family,” Rana said.
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