The terrible terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket players has effectively killed international cricket in Pakistan for the foreseeable future. The countries outside the sub-continent had already given up visits to Pakistan. India followed suit after the Mumbai attacks. Sri Lanka had stepped in to fill the void and was rewarded in the most appalling way one could think of. As we noted previously, Pakistan did not play a single Test in 2008. The rest of this year promises to go the same way.

The last time a sporting team was targeted was the infamous massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Germany (West Germany then) was able to withstand the incident mainly because the attackers came from outside and West Germany was a stable nation. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been suffering from many terror attacks recently, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

If there are no playing opportunities at home, Pakistan will play less cricket and that would mean fewer opportunities for its players, who will be more attracted by IPL, ICL and other non-international tournaments. Pakistan’s international experience at the Test level will go down and a once-strong team will decline. In some ways, Pakistan’s situation is starting to resemble Zimbabwe, which is now entirely out of Test cricket because of its internal breakdown. 

The other country which has to be careful is Sri Lanka, which has been torn by a civil war for several years. If the Tamil terrorists try similar tactics in Sri Lanka, we could see the Lankans experiencing the same fate as Pakistanis. 

This is a really bad time for the cricketing nations in the Indian sub-continent. Hope these bad times go away soon.