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Australian umpires Steve Davis and Simon Taufel have joined match referee Chris Broad in seeking answers after surviving cricket’s terrorist attack in Pakistan.
The pair made emotional returns to Australia on Thursday, still clearly shaken from their ordeal and angry about apparent security failures.
While the Sri Lankan team’s bus driver is being hailed a hero for getting his charges away, the match officials’ driver was killed early in the attack by up to a dozen heavily armed gunmen who opened fire on their convoy en route to Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Tuesday.
That left Davis, Taufel and Broad lying prone on the floor and trapped as bullets rained on their minibus, one shot seriously wounding reserve umpire Ahsad Rasa.
The trio felt let down by the convoy’s armed escort during the attack, in which six policemen and two civilians were killed and seven players were among the injured.
“We were certainly left without any security in our van when we were being fired upon,” said Davis at Melbourne airport.
“The security obviously went with the Sri Lankan bus when they managed to get away.
“We were left there and no one came back for us.
“We were let down.”
Englishman Broad also questioned why the Pakistan team bus missed the convoy, departing five minutes later after travelling with them on the previous two days of the second Test, though he noted it also happened at times during the Karachi Test.
“I thought maybe they were having five or 10 minutes more in the hotel and would turn up later, but after this happened you start to think, ‘Did someone know something and they held the Pakistan bus back?'” Broad said on arrival in England.
Taufel joined Broad and Davis in asking why the match officials were left “stranded and helpless” in the attack, and was surprised at the lack of success in finding the gunmen.
“We were promised a nine (out of 10 security) and got delivered a two,” said Taufel at Sydney airport.
“The gunfire … it just kept going. We thought, `When’s it going to stop? Who’s going to come and save us? How are we going to get out of here?’
“I’ve seen reports to suggest they haven’t caught anyone, I find that amazing.
“You tell me why no one was caught? You tell me why supposedly 25 armed commandos were in our convoy and when the team bus got going again we were left on our own?
“I don’t have the answers to these questions, I don’t know. Obviously they’ll investigate those issues. What I can tell you this morning is we were isolated, we were left alone, we were unaccounted for.
“We were not given the same security and the same attention as the playing staff were.
“Very little attention has been given to the fact our driver is dead, our fourth umpire is fighting for his life, that our liaison officer was shot in the shoulder, that we have other match officials who came within an inch of not being here.”
Pakistani Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt expressed outrage at Broad’s claims that the officials were left like “sitting ducks”, saying without the security provided the Sri Lankan team and match officials wouldn’t have survived the attack.
“Six of them (policemen) died, nine of them are seriously injured in hospital and he says there were no policemen,” Butt said.
“Where does he come up with such comments? I’m seriously going to report this back to the ICC. This is not the way. There were other people also, all foreigners, not one single one of them was injured.”
Lahore city police chief Habib-ur Rehman added: “It was precisely because of police valour and bravery that the Sri Lankan team and the international umpires survived.”
Broad insisted that whatever security arrangements were made were insufficient, pointing out that the players and officials took the same route to the stadium every day. He suggested the route should have been varied as a precaution to prevent an ambush.
“I had an inkling before the Test match leg of this tour that something was going to happen,” Broad said. “I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the PCB and they assured me through email that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security.
“And clearly that didn’t happen.”
Davis and Taufel said the attacks had changed international cricket forever.
“I was naive to think that cricket was above all that,” Davis said.
“Why should we be any different to any other innocent victims anywhere that get caught up in terrorism? There’s no reason why we should be different.”
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