Security in Pakistan not up to standard
- Bayliss
SYDNEY: The coach of the Sri Lankan cricket team that
was targeted in a deadly ambush by terrorists in Pakistan
last week has backed claims by beleaguered match officials
that security was inadequate in Lahore,
Trevor Bayliss, an Australian who is head coach at Sri
Lanka, also warned organisers of major events on the
Indian subcontinent, including the 2010 Commonwealth
Games in New Delhi, that no sport is safe from extremists.
At a news conference here Tuesday, Bayliss supported
English match referee Chris Broad and Australian umpires
Simon Taufel and Steve Davis, who said they were like
‘sitting ducks’ in the attack by more than
a dozen gunmen near a stadium last week.
Broad and Taufel made angry claims in the wake of the
attacks that their van was deserted by security when
the Sri Lankan team bus was able to drive through the
ambush and make it to the stadium.
‘They told the truth as they saw it,’ Bayliss
told the Sydney news conference. ‘There’s
probably a big difference between some of the comments
that have been made between some of the people that
weren’t in that convoy to the ones sitting in the
bus.’
‘In hindsight there just wasn’t enough security
and... even the police chief and the security people
have actually said there was a lack of security.’
Bayliss said security for the Lahore match was a lot
less intense than it had been for the Test at Karachi
the previous week and for a limited-overs tournament
in Pakistan in January and the Asian Cup last July.
‘In Karachi we had the small trucks out the front
and some behind but we also had a truck either side
of us with guys standing up through the roof with a
fixed machine gun on either side,’ Bayliss said.
‘That wasn’t there in Lahore.’
Bayliss, a former first-class player and coach in Australia
who replaced fellow Australian Tom Moody as Sri Lanka
coach in 2007, said the process for getting security
reports needed to be overhauled on the subcontinent,
including more advice from independent experts.
‘There are some big questions to be asked by the
governing bodies of all the sports, not just cricket,’
he said. ‘I think this proves if cricket, which
is the No. 1 sport on the subcontinent, can get hit
then any sport can get hit and especially any big sporting
tournaments or the Commonwealth Games.’
Bayliss said he didn’t want international cricket
to die off in Pakistan, but wasn’t in a hurry to
go back himself.
Asked what would convince him to return, he said: ‘Maybe
about 10 other tours there by other teams.’
He also urged organisers of the Indian Premier League,
scheduled to start next month, to look carefully at
security following the Lahore attack and the Mumbai
shootings last November that claimed 164 lives in India’s
financial hub.
He said most of the Sri Lankan players he’d canvassed
still planned to play in the lucrative Twenty20 league.
‘That’s more of an individual choice,’
he said. ‘I think the Sri Lankan players, most
of them if they’re fit, will go.’
‘I think that most of them are fairly keen that
cricket must continue and that terrorism can’t
stop sport and they should show a united front. When
it comes to the crunch though, when your life’s
on the line, it might be a different story.’ [Agencies]
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