Lahore security was shameful: Murali
Published: March 06, 2009
LAHORE - As the cricket world stepped up security yesterday, Pakistan came under fire for providing "shameful" protection to players and officials during Tuesday's terror attack in Lahore.
Sri Lankan spinner Muthiah Muralidaran, the greatest wicket-taker in the game's history, launched a stinging attack on Pakistan's security forces, adding weight to the testimony of Australian umpires Steve Davis and Simon Taufel, who described how they were abandoned during the gun battle. Muralitharan was quoted by The Age as saying.
In Durban, South African authorities responded by increasing the previously low-key security for the Australian team on the eve of tonight's second Test. Ricky Ponting and his team were accompanied at training by security personnel wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying massive machine guns.
This came as questions were asked about why the Pakistan team, which would normally have been part of the convoy travelling to the ground, left five minutes after the Sri Lankans and officials, and Lahore police conceded they had been warned of a possible attack. Muralitharan, in an interview with The Age, said the security arrangement was the worst he had seen, and vastly inferior to that provided in Sri Lanka, where specially trained armed guards travel with the team.
"The security was not good enough and we were sitting ducks because of that," he said. "The security people we had didn't even seem to fight back. Were they professionals with enough training? They didn't seem to know what to do. I was surprised the terrorists were able to just reload the magazines and keep firing, and they never got caught. It was shameful. If this had happened in Colombo they would never have got away."
While the bus made a successful dash to Gaddafi Stadium, the officials in the van behind were left stranded after their driver was killed. "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," Taufel said at Sydney airport on his return yesterday.