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SL seniors' demand

AFP, Colombo
Sri Lanka’s new cricket captain Kumar Sangakkara and star spinner Muttiah Muralidaran say they want security guarantees on future tours after their team survived an attack in Pakistan.
The Sri Lankan team bus was ambushed by armed militants in Lahore on March 3 as it drove towards the Gaddafi stadium during the second Test, killing eight people and leaving seven players and the British assistant coach injured.
Sangakkara, 31, was one of those injured, and doctors in Colombo had to remove shards of metal and shrapnel from his arm after the team flew home last week.
"Players are concerned about their safety now, perhaps more than earlier," the left-hand batsman and wicketkeeper told AFP.
"But 1 don’t think there is a reluctance to play the game anywhere. That's our living, weenjoydoingit."
Muralidaran, the world's leading Test and one-day wicket-taker, who escaped unhurt from the attack, said he would want more assur-
ances on safety from the host cricket board.
"I think every cricket playing country will have to take security much more seriously than before," the off-spinner told AFP.
Muralidaran, 36, said the security provided to the Sri Lankan team in Lahore was the "worst" he had seen.
"We were just sitting ducks... there was nobody to advise us, to fire back at them (terrorists)."
"It won't happen here," he said, referring to the Sri Lankan military's experience of nearly four decades of war
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with ethnic Tamil Tigers rebels, who are now restricted to a narrow strip of land in the island's northeast.
The exposure to the conflict has also mentally toughened Sri Lankans, said Muralidaran, a Tamil.
Despite "feeling scared” when bullets and grenades fell on the team bus, he wants to play at home and abroad.
"You can't stop playing cricket because of one incident. If we all stop playing, you give in to terrorists," he said.
Sri Lanka's new cricket chief Somachandra de Silva said his board will seek the foreign ministry's help to ensure security is beefed up during future tours.
"What happened in Lahore was unfortunate, but that is the reality of the world today," de Silva, a former Test leg-spinner said.
Sangakkara, who replaced Mahela Jayawardene as captain, said it will take time for the boys to get back into the right frame of mind to play international cricket.
" Physically they are fine. But mentally they are yet to fully recover," he said. "Considering what we went through in the last two weeks there is a special significance and dimension to the respon-sibilityas captain now."
The skipper said he was recovering well and appreciated the cricket board’s efforts to give the players and their immediate families trauma counselling.
Luckily, the players have time on their hands to be mentally ready for internationalcricket.
Sri Lanka's next assignment is the World Twenty20 championships in England in June, although most of the top players will be involved in the Indian Premier League in April-May.
"The boys are raring to go. 1 think we are the only side that starts off with some of the toughest countries (Australia and West Indies) in round one," said Sangakkara.
"If we can get through that, it will be a huge morale booster for us,” he said.