INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Download and listen to the full interviews with Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace, available as a Test Match Special podcast.Paul Farbrace
(left) and Trevor Bayliss (middle) joined Sri Lanka in 2007On 3 March 2009, the Sri Lanka cricket team were in Lahore, Pakistan
It was the third morning of another Test match
Shortly before 09:00 local time, just outside the Gaddafi Stadium, 12 gunmen ambushed them.Six policemen and a driver escorting match
The attackers were armed with assault rifles, grenades and rocket launchers.England coach Trevor Bayliss and his assistant Paul Farbrace,
both then working with Sri Lanka, were on the team bus
Here, 10 years on, they explain how they survived
Farbrace: We were quite a superstitious team
We always had the same seats in the bus
I was always three back, on the right-hand side as you got on
That morning I had my back to the window with one of my legs up on the other seat
I was cleaning my sunglasses, chatting to Trevor over the aisle about what we were going to say to the bowlers that morning.The next thing,
the bus jolted and came to a stop pretty quickly
I turned and looked out the window over my shoulder
I could see this guy moving towards us with a gun, firing this gun
I then looked down the front of the bus and I could see the top of a white car which had been driven onto the roundabout to block us
The next thing the bus shook again quite violently.The Sri Lankan guys on the bus had seen bomb attacks
They were aware of bomb attacks and were probably quicker to get down
I think I was thrown to the floor with the jolt as people were shouting to get down
Once I hit the floor, there was quite a significant amount of blood around me
I didn't know where it had come from until I realised I had a thick piece of metal sticking out of my forearm.Bayliss: I'd woken up with a
bit of a headache so I was lying back on my seat with my eyes shut
I would usually be sat two back from the driver, and Tillakaratne Dilshan was in the seat in front of me, just behind the driver
All of a sudden there was this explosion, not that close but close enough that it got your attention
Within a few seconds another hand grenade or something went off next to the bus
By the time I moved, everyone was on the floor in the middle of the bus
I just jumped down between the seats
There was a big roundabout next to the ground and Dilshan later said there'd been a white vehicle reversing through it that pulled up in
Some guys got out and were shooting at the police in the van in front of us
There were others waiting in the middle of roundabout too.Farbrace: The grenade injured us, pieces of metal in our bodies, pieces of the bus
that came in.Ajantha Mendis, who was in the seat in front of me, he'd fallen to the floor as well and was bleeding quite significantly from
the back of his head.On my side of the bus there was Mendis in front of me, myself, then Tharanga Paranavitana who was sat behind me
He had shrapnel in his chest and had passed out.His white training shirt was soaked in blood
He'd passed out on his seat and the physio and the trainer opposite pulled him down by his legs to get him down on the floor
Then behind them was Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera who were sat together
As Sanga fell to floor Samy fell on top of him and his backside was in the air
He was hit by a bullet, it went in at the top of his thigh.Bayliss: I was crouched down between the seats with my head facing the outside of
the bus, I could sort of see back underneath between my legs the guys lying down in the aisle
Farby was right behind and he had a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his arm, I could see the blood trickling down.The calmness on the bus
was one of the things that stood out to me
The only thing being said was quietly: 'I'm hit', 'So am I.' Time seems to stand still in that sort of situation.There was nothing you could
You just had to get low, get your head down.The bus driver had jumped on the floor as well and then someone was shouting out to get the bus
going but there were still bullets flying through the glass
Farbrace: I didn't think about dying
I wouldn't even say I was scared
Looking at the arm I was just thinking 'please don't hit me again
I don't want to be hit again'
The seat where Trevor had been sat, there were three bullet holes in the window
He'd got down and put his rucksack with his computer in it up against the window to give himself a bit of protection.Bullets were hitting
the bus but everybody was incredibly calm
There were bullets pinging the bus, hitting the glass, but the only voice I could hear was Dilshan's
It was a very distinctive voice
I can still hear it now, I probably will for the rest of my life.He would always sit right behind the driver
I could hear him shouting to the bus driver to reverse
The driver had got himself under the steering wheel and was steering with his arms above his head
He'd started to reverse back like this while Dilshan was the one popping his head up and giving him directions to get away from the attack
The driver was given huge credit, and his skills in getting us out of the situation were incredible, but to this day I think Dilshan's
Sticking his head up and talking the driver through it, telling him where to turn, that probably saved us.It seemed like this all lasted
ages but it probably was only seconds, maybe a minute and a half, I don't know
That's the one area that to this day I've never been clear on - how long the whole thing took
Bayliss: Some said it went on for 10 minutes but in reality, it was probably a minute or two at the longest
Time stands still in that sort of situation
We were 30 seconds or so from the stadium and so once we took off it wasn't too long before we got to safety, but we could still hear the
Luckily nobody from our tour party was killed but half a dozen policemen and another driver were
There is footage I think someone took with a phone of the umpires with their little white van being shot at right behind us
Once we got into the ground we felt a lot safer, and it was more about trying to look after the guys who had wounds.There was a feeling of
relief to begin with, for a few of the guys that quickly started to turn into anger, especially when the Pakistani authorities came in and
Quite clearly it wasn't OK
It was like an army hospital.Farbrace: There was a lot of blood
Once we got into the changing room, with medical people coming in, officials coming in, that's when the level of anger and distress among us
really started to hit home.Seeing people in our team laying on the physio beds bleeding and injured, in distress and in pain, that's when we
all started to realise how bad the situation was
Ajantha Mendis had somewhere in the region of 16-20 pieces of metal taken out of his head
They tried to take us out to hospital by ambulance, but I flat out refused to go back out there, there was no way I was going anywhere by
But Thilan [Samaraweera] and Para [Paranavitana] had to be taken because their injuries were serious
The two guys were taken off and then, with the TVs on, watching the news in the changing rooms, they showed this picture of an ambulance
with bullet holes in it and the doors blown open
We thought it was the one that had taken the players away but it was quickly proved it was one that had been in our convoy
There was a lot of emotion
Chris Broad, the match referee, came into our room and his white match shirt was covered in blood
He and the umpires, they'd been in a small minivan
We were in a good sized coach, high up and with some kind of protection
They had literally nothing
Their van driver was shot and killed, the fourth umpire Ahsan Raza was shot in the back
They'd been through an unbelievable experience as well
Steve Davis, another of the umpires, he had a bullet hole through the flare of his trouser leg
They'd managed to get away after a policeman got in and drove the van out for them.Bayliss: I rang my wife and she was just picking the kids
up from school, it was about 3pm in Australia.Luckily I was able to speak to her because the news had been reported very quickly, and back
in Australia they were saying the Sri Lankan coach had been shot - they didn't use the word bus but coach
Thankfully I'd spoken to her by the time friends were ringing her asking if I was OK.We were in the dressing room for about five hours
Then they got two big Chinook helicopters to land on the pitch and pick us up
That trip was a little daunting as well, we weren't exactly sure what was happening
We took off at about 2:15pm, and it was a 15-minute flight to an air force base
The Sri Lankans sent an airplane with some doctors and nurses and a few of the administrators and management too
We then took off from there at about 10 at night and flew straight back to Colombo in Sri Lanka
Farbrace: That was the most nervous time, when we were in the helicopter
There'd been talk of a handheld rocket launcher being fired and going over the top of the bus before, and I thought: 'Are they going to
attack again' Even when the plane took off I was really nervous until we got to a height where I thought we'd be safe
Most of us spent at least a week in hospital in Colombo
Ajantha Mendis used to come and sit on the spare bed in my room, some of the other younger lads too, and we'd spend a long time chatting
There's a very close bond behind those of us involved in the incident, and that is something you will never lose
That panic and fear we all had
There are always going to be the tough memories
And the attack definitely had an effect on me and the way I was for a period
Probably for four months I slept with the light on
I didn't like people walking behind me
After a while you go back to normal, if there is a normal
But I saw Ajantha recently and he said he remembered a time when a load of firecrackers went off outside the hospital window and I'd jumped
under the bed because I was so nervous
It was the first time since the attack that we'd all laughed, he said
One small piece of humour in a really emotionally tough experience to go through
It was horrendous and people died
It just shouldn't have happened, that people died trying to help us get to a match of cricket.I have no anger or bitterness, just a deep
sadness for the people who died
They weren't going to war, they were just guiding us through what has always been to me a very lovely city in Lahore
That sadness I think will stay with me forever.Download and listen to the full interviews with Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace, available
as a Test Match Special podcast.Paul Farbrace shares his first-hand account of the Lahore terror attack in 2009.The attack took place about
500m from the cricket ground, at Liberty SquarePakistani security officials display the weapons used by the gunmen
Following the attack, the New Zealand team cancelled its December 2009 tour
Pakistan was also stripped of 2011 Cricket World Cup co-hosting rightsAt a ceremony in Colombo one month after the attack, former Sri Lankan
captain Kumar Sangakkara (left) greets Mohammad Khalil (right), the Pakistani bus driver who helped them to safetyPakistan hosted no
top-level international cricket for six years after the attack
Zimbabwe became the first Test-playing nation to visit since when playing two T20 matches and three one-day internationals in 2015Pakistani
umpire Ahsan Raza, who was shot twice in the 2009 attack, officiated during the 2015 Zimbabwe tour
That series was completed despite a suicide bomb attack taking place outside Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium two days before the final matchSri
Lanka returned to Pakistan and to Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium for the first time since the attack when they played a T20 match on Sunday, 29
