"It has never happened before in Pakistan, sports persons haven’t been targeted," Javed Miandad told GEO TV. "It’s terrible and really sad. It looks like a well-thought and planned assault. Sri Lanka and Pakistan have always helped each other. They have never said no to tour Pakistan and have always helped us in troubled situations. The foreign teams were already not coming and this [incident] is going to affect Pakistan cricket in the future. This is not to say that cricket will stop. The world will have to stay united and fight terrorism. I hope they just don’t say they won’t tour Pakistan. If we do that we will only support the terrorists’ cause."

Pakistan police’s disposal unit inspector Abdul Ghafoor said that two car bombs had been defused, one at Liberty Square and the other at Firdus Park.

"We have defused a bomb in a white Hyundai and after some time we got information about a suspect car in the Firdus car park. We also defused the bomb there," he told AFP. Local sector warden Malik Fayyaz told AFP that grenades, three kilograms of explosives, a pistol and a one-metre detonating cable had been recovered.

Dominic Cork, who is commentating on the match in Lahore, spoke to Sky News: "I won't be coming back here while I'm still living. I don't think international teams should come back to this country, whether it's 10 or 20 years."

Reg Dickason, the security expert hired by England and Australia, said " A lot of concerns we raised during the Champions Trophy have unfortunately come home to roost. The notion of sporting teams being a protected species was held by many, but it was not a view that we shared, unfortunately."

The Sri Lankans were on their way to the Gaddafi Stadium when their bus was attacked by five armed terrorists near Liberty market. Habibur Rehman, chief commissioner of police, said 12 masked terrorists fired at the Sri Lankan team bus. The gunmen shot at the wheels of the bus and also injured the driver. A grenade was also thrown at the bus but it missed.

"The bus came under attack as we were driving to the stadium, the gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first and then the bus," Mahela Jayawardene told Cricinfo. "We all dived to the floor to take cover. About five players have been injured and also Paul Farbrace [a member of the support staff], but most of the injuries appear to be minor at this stage and caused by debris."

Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman said, "They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws." Television footage of several gunmen creeping through the trees, crouching to aim their kalashnikovs then running onto the next target were aired by Pakistan's private channel Geo, AFP reported. Crystals of broken glass littered the road next to a gun cartridge and an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A police motorbike was shown crashed sideways into the road at the Liberty Chowk (roundabout) in Lahore. Bullet holes ripped through the windscreen of another vehicle and a white car was shown smashed headlong into the roundabout as nervous security officers guarded the site.

NDTV are reporting that there's shock among the players in the Indian dressing room in New Zealand ...

India were scheduled to tour Pakistan but the trip was cancelled after the terror attacks in Mumbai by Pakistan-based terrorists. Sri Lanka stepped in to fill the gap for Pakistan. Pakistan are scheduled to host the Champions Trophy later this year ...

The BCCI issued a release expressing its "sorrow and anguish over the dastardly attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team at Lahore. We pray for the speedy recovery of the injured cricketers, and sympathize with their families and compatriots.

Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland said Australian cricket was shocked to hear the news. "Australian cricket has many friends in Sri Lanka and in Pakistan and we sincerely hope they are all safe after this awful incident,” he said. “Early reports are unclear but we are deeply saddened to hear reports that security officials in Pakistan have been killed in this attack."

This is what the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse had to say. "I condemn this cowardly terrorist attack targeting the Sri Lankan cricket team," Rajapakse told AFP. "The Sri Lankan players had gone to Pakistan as ambassadors of goodwill."

Our sources tell us Samaraweera and Paravitarana were the ones most seriously injured and have been taken to hospital. they had shrapnel wounds in the chest and hamstring which have been dressed and they are doing fine.

Sri Lanka's foreign secretary Palitha Cohona has confirmed that the team will return today. He said they hoped to take the first available flight. He said that six players were hurt and that the players were being evacuated from the stadium and taken to a safe play. He's praising the Pakistan authorities for their cooperation and is appalled that a sporting team has been targeted in this manner.

Ijaz Butt, the PCB chief, has said the Test has been called off. Salman Tasheer, the Punjab governor, said a helicopter will soon evacuate the Sri Lankan players from Gaddafi stadium and take them to a nearby airbase from where the team will fly back to Sri Lanka.

The reserve umpire Ahsan Raza was also injured in the attack. Nadeem Ghauri, the TV umpire, who was traveling in a bus behind the Sri Lanka team bus said the firing continued for some time. He said the bus driver was critically injured in the attack.

Umpire Steve Davis, who was on the team bus, called the terrorist attack “terrible”. “I’m lost for words,” he said.

Terror struck at the heart of cricket when masked gunmen attacked the bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. Five cricketers, including Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lankan captain, and his deputy Kumar Sangakkara, received minor injuries. The attack also left six security men and two civilians dead. Duleep Mendis, the Sri Lanka Cricket chief, said that they were "getting the team back [to Sri Lanka] today".