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I was awoken rudely by the telephone at 6am Johannesburg time on Tuesday morning. Partially conscious and about to curse the hotel staff for an incorrect wake up time, it took a few moments to come to terms with the reality of the news that was being delivered.
I simply did not want to believe that anyone, let alone an international cricket team, could be so brazenly attacked.
It was not just the magnitude of the event, in itself horrendous, but also the fact that I was very familiar with the location and surroundings where the terrorists chose to bombard innocent policemen and cricket staff.
The Liberty roundabout is a junction on the Gulberg Main Boulevarde and the branch street that leads one way to Gaddafi Stadium and the other into Liberty market and onwards to MM Allam Road, where Lahore’s finest restaurants and cafes reside. The Main Boulevarde is wide, four lanes either way, which fits about seven cars usually across those four, with planted palm and manicured lawn separating motor vehicles and pedestrians.
The roundabout is wide and speed through it is often excessive (outside of peak hour when it crawls).
I had my first traffic accident in Lahore on the very spot on which the armed lunatics fired rockets, bullets and grenades at the cricket convoy. There were no injuries, just a scratch on Shoaib Malik’s second car.
People were killed in this scrape; innocent poorly paid, hard working policemen and soldiers with wives and families.
Luckily (or was it because the security was up to standard) no players or officials were killed. The injuries were caused by flying glass rather than flying lead.
The shock is still with me as I write this some fourteen hours later.
The chances of international cricket being played in Pakistan have been slim for quite a while.
Australia have not toured for ten years, and it may be another ten or perhaps twenty before they do so again.
The Champions Trophy will go elsewhere, but surely not to Sri Lanka where the LTTE have not finished their terror attacks in the twenty year civil war .
The 2011 World Cup is scheduled for Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Each one of those countries has civil unrest and terror alerts of a substantial nature.
Cricket Australia have bravely decided to continue with the ODI series in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but is anywhere really safe from terrorists? Certainly New York and London have not been so in the twenty-first century.
The game of cricket can be – and has been – a vehicle for bringing people and nations together. We cannot let lunatics wear that away.
The nation of Pakistan is in turmoil at the present with a weak minority government that lacks resolve and ability. The events of Tuesday will serve only to unravel the frame of the nation even more.
I feel for the cricketers, the fans, and the officials who have been attacked and scared. I feel for all my friends in Pakistan.
I hope they are safe and well.
This is not what our sport is supposed to be about.
I look forward to a group claiming responsibility for this attack so we will know what motives could possibly lie behind this terror against sport.
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Geoff Lawson was recently the national cricket coach of Pakistan and is a former Australian Test cricketer. He has previously written on life in Pakistan cricket.