Kumar Sangakkara comforts his wife Yehali on returning to Colombo © AFP

There's no point in denying that sport has never been under such grievous threat. As every illusion about the invincibility of sport, its emotion, what it does to the human spirit at its moments of greatest expression, was shot down with the events in Lahore, writes James Lawton in the Independent.

Of course sport will survive because it is not something that is created outside some of the most basic instincts of young people to compete and enjoy whatever talent they have been given, and when you have enjoyed pleasure it will never leave you. However, there is no point in denying that in its highest form, on the international stage, it has never been under such grievous threat.

Angus Fraser in the same paper writes on how touring Asia used to be one of the game's great pleasures but those days are now over, with the stakes becoming too high now.

Every player who has toured Asia will have sat on a similar bus and made similar journeys to and from the ground they were playing at. On occasion each of us would have nervously looked out of the coach window and questioned the motives of the motorbike driver inquisitively staring at you. But on nearly every occasion the stare turned to a smile once he had realised the coach was filled with cricketers. Considering the humble life of most of these people it was easy to thank your lucky stars for the position you were in.

Mike Atherton believes the Lahore terror attacks could have a devastating effect on the game in the subcontinent. In an interview to Patrick Kidd in the Times he also talks about the end of cricket as a truly international sport if cricket in India were take a blow.

Sarah Hoggard writing in the same paper, recalls how dangers would be at the back of her mind when her husband and England fast bowler Matthew went on tour to Pakistan or India in recent years. However, she would remind herself that dreadful things could happen anywhere, at any time, and that her husband was being looked after by people who could be trusted to keep him safe.

That was of particular importance in India, where the cricket supporters are so fanatical that every time you step out of the hotel you are likely to get mobbed...On tour in India we got a taste of what the Beckhams' lives must be like all the time. So in situations like that, it's important that you are made to feel secure.

Mihir Bose in his blog on the BBC website says there are two very worrying things about the events in Pakistan. To begin with, there can never be absolute security for anybody, with hastily-arranged matches making security even more difficult. Second, the perpetrators must have had frighteningly good intelligence about what was going on.

Mike Selvey in his blog on the Guardian website voices his concerns about the game, given that the whole subcontinent will be out of bounds for some time now.

A new Future Tours Programme was to be put in place by the ICC to follow the current arrangement which runs until 2012. David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald believes it's time to start again and delete all proposed trips to Pakistan. Also, check out Rod Emmerson's cartoon in the same paper.

It was perhaps all true and gut-feel “honest”, but Dhoni's remarks on being "happy we didn't tour Pakistan" was perhaps inappropriate and insensitive. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website takes the opportunity to understand BCCI’s grasp, or the lack, of media training or media management.

The current regime even takes great pride in being control freaks of a kind. Except when some real control is needed, the BCCI somehow finds a way to ensure that Indian cricket ends up with its foot in its mouth.

Vir Sanghvi in his editorial piece in the Hindustan Times calls for the postponement of the IPL with the India security forces firmly focussing on protecting the elections from jihadi attacks.

March 4, 2009

Why didn't anyone notice the gunmen?

Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore

The editors of Pakistan's Jang raise questions regarding the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, those that the government may be forced to answer over the next few days.

... the attack was carried out close to a police station and that the attackers must have conducted a reconnaissance for them to set up a kill-zone – and nobody noticed? Nobody noticed that up to fourteen heavily armed men using at least three cars, as well as rickshaws and bicycles, were securing a road junction in the centre of Lahore? A reasonable person may infer from this that there was a failure of intelligence, both electronic and human.

United we stand

Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore

	Security guards crowd round the Sri Lankan team's bullet-ridden bus © Getty Images

The terror attacks in Lahore carried deeper ramifications for the game with some of cricket’s superstars targeted and wounded. Rob Houwing in Sport24.com calls on the game’s community to stand together and not be driven apart by evil and bloodshed

Potential for polarisation and some resentment exists, even if the game being split along the “First v Third World” lines of old is unlikely, and to be guarded against at all costs. The world governing body, the ICC, is not always renowned for its stealth, diplomatic nous or pro-activity. This a good time for it to display decisive leadership -- there may be no choice. It is confronted by a delicate and deeply complex issue, because security for the game’s participants and enthusiasts is one of those “no middle ground” necessities.

Neil Johnson, understandably is shocked at the events in Pakistan, a country which he has fond memories of during Zimbabwe's tour in 1999. He presents a few snippets from that visit in his column in the Natal Witness.

The public in Pakistan are mad about cricket, its very much part of daily life there. Even in the dusty back streets of Lahore you would be sure to find youngsters decked out in “whites” and dusty cricket jerseys, bowling at makeshift stumps. As visitors we were treated like celebrities. All the average man in the street wanted to do was to welcome us to his country and cheer the bus as it moved on.

Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger believes cricket is sullied and has become an unwitting and unwilling poster child for the renaissance of international sporting terrorism.

Cricket is a soft target for terrorists

Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore

	An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred © AFP

Cricket makes for a gruesomely eye-catching target for terrorists because it is high profile and, in their eyes, dangerously decadent, writes Ed Smith in the Times.

In the terrorist mindset, the effete and Western activity of cricket distracts good Muslims from what they should be doing: praying and executing jihad. In the terrorist imagination, cricket, loved by millions of ordinary Pakistanis, is an emblem of evil Western modernity. An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred.

In the same paper, Simon Barnes finds it hard to work out how sport, which is an ideal target for terrorists, has managed to live a mostly charmed life until now.

Sport is already a stage and the world is watching. All a terrorist has to do is alter the script and all the publicity in the world is his to command. I have been through a million metal detectors; my laptop has been X-rayed so often that it glows; my bag has been fumbled with and my crotch groped repeatedly by the uniformed and the charmless; and I know that all this performance is just for the look of the thing and that a professional could get through with anything he liked.

In the Guardian, Dileep Premachandran writes that after the events in Lahore, the old cliche about cricket being the subcontinent's religion can be buried forever.

If the ICC is to prove itself fit to govern international cricket, it must now accept the inevitable consequences of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore and announce categorically that all international cricket in Pakistan is suspended until further notice, writes David Hopps in the same paper.

Tunku Vardarajan believes the attacks on the Sri Lankan sportsmen have shown that these terrorist groups have no love for the idea of Pakistan as a Muslim democracy capable of cohabiting with a wider world. He writes on forbes.com.

Threat bare

Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore

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.