Apres Lahore

The biggest news over the past few days has been that of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers right outside the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore. I have been following the entire story on Cricinfo and reading the first-person account as provided by the Sri-Lankan cricket team vice-captain Kumar Sangarkkara. The incident is shocking and really scary.

To be honest though, no one is sure as to what the Sri Lankan team was doing in Pakistan in the first place. The message that PCB wanted to get across by hosting this series in Pakistan was to indicate to both New Zealand cricket and Cricket Australia (and also BCCI indirectly) that it is safe to play cricket in Pakistan. That is why the timing of this attack is that much more significant.

Logically speaking, if CA and NZC consider a tour to Pakistan sometime in the future, they will be sending a security team to Pakistan to assess the security situation. But can they really go by the security team’s suggestions? The bigger question is, can they trust PCB and the Pakistani government that security will be guaranteed ? Will the players’ associations agree? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be a big NO at least as of now.

I really doubt if cricket in the other parts of the sub-continent is going to be affected atleast as long as BCCI is acting as the financial powerhouse of the sport. Highly unlikely that the 2011 World Cup is going to be shifted out of India. For all you know, BCCI given its sheer power, will host the World Cup without giving a f*&k as to what ICC & the other boards are saying and the only other teams that will be participating will be Bangladesh, UAE, Malaysia and Kenya.

Back to the subject : If anyone had any doubts, this now proves that no one has a frigging idea as to who is calling the shots in Pakistan. That is really disturbing news for people here in India and also the other neighbors of Pakistan. My friend was speculating that this might happen and although he was kidding, it turns out that he is right. IMO, if the Pakistan government was smart and wanted itself to be taken seriously at the world stage, it would have refrained from making any such statements without any substantial proof.

Before I end, read Prem Panicker’s article on the same subject.

PS: It feels weird to actually tag this article with both ‘terrorism’ and ‘cricket’.