This is a story perhaps not getting as much attention domestically as it should.

Terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, wounding six players and an English coach, and killing at least seven police and two bystanders.

This is the first attack on an international sports team since Munich, 1972.

This is a big deal, a very big deal in the cricket-playing world and, in particular, in the Asian subcontinent.

Cricket is the No. 1 sport in a band of countries ranging from Bangladesh through India to Pakistan. Athletes there aspire to play for the national team. Cricket is a big reason that none of those countries is worth a darn in soccer. Cricket sucks up attention and money, as well as athletes.

Cricket also is an important sport (say, top three in popularity) in South Africa, Australia, the West Indies and England, where the game was invented.

The sport is getting hammered in the part of the world where it is most popular, given the terror attacks in Mumbai, India, which put a damper on all things cricket (including a planned visit of the Indian team to Pakistan). And now this, clearly an outright attack on the sport.

We can guess at the motives. Some second-hand attack on a Sri Lankan institution inspired by the Tamil Tigers, the separatist group in Sri Lanka that is being pushed toward extinction by the government. Or by generic Pakistani terrorists who just want to show, as the linked Reuters story suggested, that the government in Pakistan can’t guarantee the security of anyone or anything.

We can be fairly certain no international cricket will be played in Pakistan anytime soon. Which is unfortunate on a number of levels. Not least of which is that cricket is a precious and revered form of entertainment and national pride among several countries in the region. Including Pakistan.