The death of cricket in Pakistan may be a foregone conclusion, but cricket on the subcontinent - where the game's financial heart beats - may also be fatally wounded, pundits say.
As the shock waves from yesterday's attack on Sri Lankan cricketers spread, the future of the game has been dissected in newspapers and on TV.
Numerous outlets drew direct comparisons to the attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Almost uniformly, experts and officials have declared that international cricket will not be played in Pakistan anytime soon.
Some of the most fatalistic statements came from Pakistan's former cricketing greats.
"It is all gone," former batsman Javed Miandad said.
Former spinner Iqbal Qasim said: "For the time being we feel everything has come to a dead end."
Former captain Wasim Akram said: "This will end the game for the next couple of years, including the hosting rights of the World Cup."
Former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson told Cricinfo that the Pakistan team would become nomads.
"Cricket won't be played in Pakistan for the foreseeable future ... Pakistan look like they will become a wandering cricket team now."
Other cricketing nations might even refuse to play Pakistan at home, over fears terrorists might trail the team, former fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz said.
Cricket authorities have been more cautious, accepting that "a very significant change" was necessary before cricket in Pakistan could resume, but not ruling out a return even by 2011, when Pakistan was to co-host the World Cup.
"The current situation need not perpetuate into the future. We must not believe Pakistan will remain unsafe for ever," ICC president David Morgan said. "The world is dangerous but cricket must and will go on."
The Pakistan Cricket Board pleaded for Pakistan cricket not to be abandoned. "It is very easy now to just say 'let's stop going to Pakistan', but we need the support of the international cricket community," PCB spokesman Wasim Bari said.
"We can still hold international matches. Terrorists have tried to hit cricket targets in other countries as well."
While much of the focus has been on the game's future in Pakistan, yesterday's attack crystallised safety fears about the entire subcontinent, raising broader fears about the future of international cricket.
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