Umpires victims of Pakistan Cricket Attack

Match referee Chris Broad walked around in a blood stained shirt while umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Davis looked dazed, just hours after an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team touring Pakistan on Tuesday. While they're used to dealing with incredible pressure in the cauldron of international cricket, nothing prepared the officials for this.

"It was horrifying. There were bullets flying around us and we didn't know what was happening," Pakistani Test umpire Nadeem Ghouri told Reuters. A dozen heavily armed militants attacked the Sri Lankan team bus as it was being taken by police escort to the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore for the start of the second day of their five-day Test.

Star wicket-keeper batsman Kumar Sangakkara and mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis along with Thilan Samaraweera, Tharanga Paranavitana, Suranga Lakmal and Thilina Thushara were injured in the attack at the busy Liberty Chowk traffic roundabout, located less than a kilometre from Gaddafi Stadium, at 9 am.

Hours after the ambush, authorities defused two car bombs before they could explode and recovered a cache of weapons in Lahore. The Pakistani team was in its hotel at the time of the incident. Officials immediately took steps to prevent it from leaving the hotel. The driver of the bus carrying the cricketers said the terrorists shot at his vehicle from all sides. A rocket fired from behind missed the bus and hit an electric pylon, he said. The driver, who did not give his name, said he had seen a tall and bearded terrorist wearing a shalwar kameez emerge from a white car and open fire at his bus. Another terrorist lobbed a grenade that passed under the bus, he said. "People started shouting in the bus and the players said 'Go, go'. I drove the bus at high speed to the stadium. I then saw a Sri Lankan player was hit in the leg by a bullet. We
called an ambulance and put him in it," said the driver. Rehman said the attackers, armed with rocket launchers, grenades and Kalashnikovs, had come to the spot in a rickshaw and cars.