The dapper man in blazer and beard who pressed the bell of the end house on Causeway Avenue was familiar with the Clontarf cul-de-sac.

Hussain Khan had spent an enjoyable year under its roof, five summers earlier, with his four student sons. They had been welcomed into the community by the person he had come to see that afternoon, Vinny Fitzpatrick.

Trim and tidy, Khan was nearer 70 than 60 but could still play a mean cover drive, and bowl a decent line and length as well, for the veterans of Lahore Gymkhana Cricket Club.

Khan lived a frugal life – except when it came to cricket. In this he indulged himself every summer by following the top teams in Test matches, one-day internationals and even T20 games.

That he could afford to spend to do so was due to the financial assistance of his sons, all now doing well in business and more than happy to stump up, aware their father had sacrificed much for their education.

For the past three weeks, Khan had followed the thrilling duels of New Zealand and England the length and breadth of Blighty. After that he planned a short trip to Dublin to see some old friends, among them one Vinny Fitzpatrick.

Khan was re-directed from Mount Prospect Avenue by Emma, Vinny’s stepdaughter, who had marked her visitor’s card about the separation. To the intuitive Khan, she seemed genuinely upset that her mother and Vinny had split up.

After pressing the bell a second time, Khan scrunched up his face in dismay, for he had reckoned that Sunday lunchtime was as good a time as any to catch Vinny at home.

He chose to leave a message, apologising for arriving without notice, thanking Vinny again for his friendship and reminding him to drop into Lahore if he was ever in Pakistan. He signed it off with a compliment, “Vinny, your hook shot off fast bowling was worthy of a far greater audience. Regards, Hussain K”.

At that, he bent down, opened the letter box and pushed the note through. He paused briefly, for a last look at the house he called home for 12 months.

Vinny’s old jacket was hanging at the foot of the stairs – he never left home without it – and his late mother’s rosary beads still lay in a bowl on the hall table.

Where there’s smoke

They were dusty, noted Mr Khan. Only it wasn’t dust, it was something else – it was smoke. Squinting hard, Khan could barely make out the kitchen door, under which threatening billows of smoke were squirting out.

If he wasn’t mistaken, No 1 Causeway Avenue was on fire and Vinny’s jacket indicated he was somewhere inside. After pressing the doorbell again, more urgently this time, Khan tried his shoulder against the door; it wouldn’t budge.

Seized by a fear for the well-being of his former landlord, he thought on his feet, which was ingrained into him long ago as an aspiring cricketer.

Setting off at a fair trot, Khan darted back up the avenue, turned left and left again until he arrived at the tiny garden at the far end of the lane. From there, he could clearly see smoke circulating the tiny kitchen. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said aloud.

After skipping nimbly over the rear gate, Khan tried the door. It was locked. He needed to break in, but how? The garden shed was ajar and Khan looked inside for a weapon. He found one.

Glistening like new was the Gray-Nicolls cricket bat that his son Amir had presented to Vinny on their departure. It had once been used by the mighty Mohammad Yousuf.

“Time to swing into action, Excalibur,” he said, grabbing the wizened willow.

Khan smashed a pane of glass in the back door, reached inside and turned the key.

A blast of choking smoke took his breath away and he recoiled briefly before dashing into the fog. He only had one thought: saving Vinny.

Visibility was minimal but Khan recalled every nook and cranny of his old lodgings. He could make out flames licking up from the cooker and heard the lethal hiss of gas.

A flame away

Quickly, he turned off the knob, aware that all it needed was one loose flame to turn the house into an inferno.

In the front room, he spied his friend. Vinny looked like he’d fallen asleep, his mouth was open and a newspaper was open on his lap.

Grabbing Vinny under one arm, Khan hoisted the 17-stone bulk into a fireman’s lift and slowly made his way back to the kitchen.

The smoke was eating into his lungs and his legs started to wobble. “Don’t let me down now,” he said to himself.

The chip pan was still hissing and spitting, and Khan knew the house, heavy with gas, could explode at any second. With a final heave, the doughty Pakistani staggered out through the back door, panting heavily.

He had just placed Vinny down on the sheltered side of the garden shed, when there was an enormous blast.

A wall of heat, flying glass, masonry and debris flew around the two men as they knuckled in the lee of a shed buttressed by the oak beams that Vinny’s old man, Finbarr, used to build it in the 1970s.

As the noise, the heat and the vibrations began to pass, Vinny came to, and croaked a noise. He meant to say “What was that?”, but it came out akin to ‘Howzat.’

At that, Hussain Khan allowed himself a wry smile. “Not out, Vinny. Not out.”