IPL threatened after Lahore attacks

London: The unthinkable has happened, but not the unexpected. A touring team have been attacked by terrorists in Pakistan, a country at the forefront of global terror.

However, so cosmopolitan is cricket's international community that the horrors, in which eight people were killed and seven Sri Lankan players and one coach (Englishman Paul Farbrace) were injured, have been brought terrifyingly close to every Test country.

For the victims, few were closer than Chris Broad, the match referee and former England batsman, who was stranded in his vehicle after his driver had been shot dead.

Broad faced some of the fiercest fast bowlers but reckoned he had never been as frightened in his life. How sad that this callous act will be his pre-eminent cricket memory.

The former England bowler, Dominic Cork, was also nearby when the terrorists struck. He said he would never visit Pakistan again, a sentiment many more cricketers will no doubt express in the coming days.

Yet, this is not simply a problem for Pakistan, at once a fascinating and beautiful country. According to experts, the terrorists bore more than a passing resemblance to the well-trained, clean-cut assassins who attacked Mumbai last year.

Borders in Asia are porous and cricket all over the subcontinent, a victim of its own success since the launch of the Indian Premier League, is now under threat.

However, will that stop players going? Kevin Pietersen said he had not even thought about the IPL, being more concerned about the players and officials caught up in the attack.

A time will soon come, however, when he and the other players, in consultation with their families, will have to decide if the risk-reward ratio of IPL is worthwhile.

After all, security firms in Iraq do not work for the minimum wage. Will the risk be worth it, though?

As Pietersen put it before yesterday's terror: "Half-a-million quid for three weeks of fun, I'm not turning that down."

Yet, how much fun can it be to startle every time a tuk-tuk backfires, fearful they may not be the only things going bang when the cricket is on?

Predictably, England's players and their security adviser, Reg Dickason, are treating India and IPL as a separate case from Pakistan, which seems barmy given their own skitterish flight from India in the aftermath of the Mumbai atrocities.

What must be increasingly plain is that cricket is coming under threat from people driven by dogmas and forces most of us cannot begin to comprehend.

When that happens all guarantees of safety are useless, a situation that must threaten the 2011 World Cup, in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2009