“Cricket, meet terror”

The unthinkable has happened. What many feared in private, but dismissed publicly as unlikely, given the Indian sub-continent’s passion for cricket, happened at Lahore yesterday. Terrorists attacked the bus ferrying the Sri Lankan cricket team to the Gaddafi stadium, injuring 6 or 7 of them and killing 5 of the security guards on duty watching over the visiting team.

The sheer audacity of the attack is chilling. Forget the similarities (or lack thereof) with the Mumbai attacks on Nov 26, 2008. Even more shocking is that any terrorist group would gather the courage to launch such an attack on cricketers- many of whom, in terms of pecking order, rank perhaps only after God.

That the cricketing world has gone into a tailspin is understandable. Questions are being raised about playing in Pakistan, whether the World Cup should be held in the sub continent at all (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are  the co-hosts) and now even the second edition of the hugely-popular IPL is under a cloud. To be sure, the IPL uncertainty also has to do with the Lok Sabha polls that were announced yesterday. Given that the polls will be held during April-May, the same time as the IPL, the Indian government fears that its security forces will be stretched. But when IPL’s second season will take off also depends on the foreign players actually turning up to play. Already, rumblings have begun, with various Australians, New Zealanders and Englishmen having spoken about their unwillingness to play in India. The sentiments are understandable, but it is important to keep in mind that the terror elements who perpetrated the attack in Lahore, appear to be very well-organized and may well have the wherewithal to execute similar attacks almost anywhere in the world.