Bipin Dani
ICC’s umpire Bismillah Jan Shinwari is alive and safe. The 36-year-old Afghanistani umpire’s death has been wrongly reported in the international media. “The Afghanistani umpire died in a roadside blast which took place in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province on Saturday”, the TV reports said.
Speaking exclusively over telephone from Afghanistan, Shinwari , the members of the Emirates ICC International Panel of Umpires, said, “I am very much at home and safe”.
“It has been wrongly reported about my death. I am alive but yes, four members of two uncles family have been killed in the bomb blast”.
“My nephew and the three other children of my uncle’s family were going from home to hospital for a general check up and at the same time some bomb blast took place nearby and they have passed away”.
“Even the driver is also killed. Two of my uncle’s family are injured and being hospitalized”, he further added.
“It is a great tragedy for us but what can we do ? Man is helpless against the wishes of God”. The bomb blast happened in Shinwari district of Nangarhar. The world T20 No 1 bowler Rashid Khan, who has been playing for SunRisers Hyderabad in the IPL too belongs to this district.
In another sad incident, Afghanistan cricketer Najeeb Tarakai is in coma after a fatal road accident.
The 29-year-old opening batsman, who played one ODI and 12 T-20Is met with an accident in Jalalabad city. “He was hit by a car on the middle of the road and then brought to a nearby hospital”, another umpire, Ahmad Shah Pakteen, in a conversation with this reporter, said.
