Watch: Pakistani bus driver for 2009 Sri Lanka team recalls terror attack
Pakistani bus driver for 2009 Sri Lanka team recalls attack
In Sri Lanka, I did not feel like a Pakistani driver. I felt like I was the President of Pakistan. I could never in my life have imagined the type of respect that they gave me
Pakistan will host Sri Lanka's cricket team in Lahore on Sunday (October 29) for one T20 match, the first meeting between the two teams on Pakistani soil since militants attacked the Sri Lankan team's bus in March 2009 killed eight people and left six players wounded, bringing international cricket tours to Pakistan to a halt.
In the past eight years, Pakistan has only hosted one international series against bottom-ranked Zimbabwe in 2015, a match that was targeted by a suicide bomb attack outside the stadium. The upcoming match has been heralded as the return of cricket to Pakistan by ecstatic fans in the cricket-crazy country.
Arguably the happiest among them is Meher Mohammad Khalil, the Pakistani driver of the Sri Lankan team bus that came under fire from the militants in 2009.
Khalil has been widely hailed as a national hero for his brave act of driving the Sri Lankan team, with a punctured tyre, to the secured Gaddafi Stadium amidst heavy gunfire from the militants while they were on their way to the ground for the third day's play of the second Test against the hosts.
Khalil was not only rewarded by the Pakistani government but also invited to Sri Lanka as a State Guest where he was given a Medal of Bravery and a $35,000 reward.