It is probably the last time in a long, long while that an international team is going to drive into the Gaddafi Stadium. Along with the shock of the morning, comes the sadness at all that will inevitably follow. The terrorists in Lahore have, in a very macabre manner, leveled the playing field. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website exposes the myth that cricket is bullet-proof as she takes a walk down memory lane.
From Bundu Khan’s delectable kababs to Younis Khan’s obdurate defence. From the obliging cloth merchants of Liberty market to Danish Kaneria’s more deceptive offerings. The walk to the ground before start of play is pleasant, with just enough time either to imagine what could possibly transpire over the next few hours or for the more methodical to draw up mental to-do lists. Traffic around the circle is usually leisurely, courteous in the manner of everything Lahore. As the red-brick of the stadium nears, the melee of the market falls away.
The half-hour madness in Lahore means from now stadiums will now become garrisons and cricket-watching will further move away from stands to television sets, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
The Hindu editors feel the costs of sponsoring, temporising with, or going soft on terrorism have never been higher.
In the Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali reveals the feeling among Pakistanis through a text message she received from a sports journalist in the country.
On Tuesday morning, a Pakistani sports journalist and friend responding to an email asking if he was okay and what exactly was going on there sent back a terse, anguished reply: "Thanks, we don't exist." That's more or less what the rest of the world - cricketing or otherwise - believes of Pakistan, especially after Tuesday.
Whatever the shortcomings, the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore has shown that one would be a fool if one got complacent with promises of “foolproof security.” The visitors, after all, had been assured exactly that. Lokendra Pratap Sahi in the Telegraph, the Kolkata daily, zooms in on the soft spot selected for the strike.
First, the entry gate is rather narrow and the team bus has to almost stop before a tight right turn (for the portico) is taken. Usually, there are enough security personnel, including the Elite ‘No Fear’ Punjab Police commandos, but terrorists could still strike and cause absolute mayhem. It’s a chilling thought.
Till Tuesday, 'Tis not cricket' had a connotation quite different from what it might be in the future. Ayaz Memon in Daily News & Analysis believes the utter mindlessness of the act will have left the global anti-terror protagonists even more bewildered, and the international sports fraternity, especially cricket, bedevilled.
The PCB had last year signed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for visiting teams on the insistence of the ICC security consultants. Rehman Malik, the top man in the interior ministry, signed the SOP on behalf of the government and apparently many of the guidelines set out in the procedure were not followed for the Sri Lankan team. The following piece in Mid-Day provides the details.
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