MANCHESTER: Cricket match referee Chris Broad yesterday slammed the Pakistan security forces for providing insufficient protection after he and fellow officials came under fire during the terror attack in Lahore on Tuesday.
The van carrying Broad to the Gaddafi Stadium for the third day of the second Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka was fired upon by gunmen also shooting at the nearby Sri Lanka team bus.
Ex-England batsman Broad, who said he’d expressed concerns for his safety before the start of the tour, told a news conference here yesterday: “I am extremely angry at the Pakistani security forces.
“We were promised high level security and in our hour of need that security vanished and they left us to be sitting ducks.” He added: “I had an inkling before the Test match leg of the tour that something might happen. I certainly didn’t think this was going to happen.
“I raised my concerns with the ICC (International Cricket Council) before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the Pakistan Cricket Board and they assured me through e-mail that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security. And clearly that didn’t happen.
“When we were in the van we weren’t aware of what was going on outside.
“But after the incident when you watch the TV pictures you can clearly see the white van we were in, next to the ambulance in the middle of a roundabout, with terrorists shooting into our van and past our van and not a sign of a policeman anywhere.”
Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ijaz Butt contested Broad’s interpretation of events.
“How can Chris Broad say this when six policemen were killed?” Butt said, adding that he would comment further after speaking to the Englishman.
Broad, 51, has been praised for trying to protect severely injured local umpire Ahsan Raza after the fourth official had been shot in a van where the driver was killed by gunfire.
But Broad, clearly still shaken by events, stressed: “I am not a hero.
“Ahsan Raza took a bullet to the stomach or chest — somewhere in the spleen and lung region. I was lying behind him on the floor of the van and there were bullets flying all around us.
“I only noticed he was injured when I saw a large pool of blood had spilled on to the floor and out of the partially opened van door. I just tried to put some pressure on the wound. He’s just an umpire who loves the game.” “We all had the same feeling — we were just waiting for a bullet to hit us.”
Broad, said the incident had the capacity to sound the “death knell” for international cricket in Pakistan.
