Pakistan legend Javed Miandad said on Thursday a ”conspiracy” seeking to undermine his country was behind its increasing isolation in world cricket.

Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said on Tuesday his group had carried out an assault on a police academy in the city of Lahore.

Cricket is Pakistan’s life and soul, but after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket side in Lahore, these lie in tatters.

Back in August 2006, a bomb outside a shopping centre about a kilometre from their Colombo hotel prompted the South Africans to abandon a tri-series.

Pakistan said on Thursday authorities had identified the men who ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Pakistani police have rounded up scores of people in their investigation of an attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team, but no breakthrough has emerged.