Some Sri Lanka cricketers requested to return home from their Pakistan tour on Wednesday for safety reasons after a suicide bombing in Islamabad, but their board issued a stern directive to stay put or face consequences. Sri Lanka are touring Pakistan, playing three one-day internationals followed by a Twenty20 tri-series along with Zimbabwe this month. Sri Lanka were scheduled to play Pakistan in the second ODI on Thursday in Rawalpindi.

But the bombing, which killed 12 people in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, made several Sri Lankan players ask to go home, the Sri Lanka Cricket board said in a statement.

Rawalpindi and Islamabad are twin cities hardly 20 km (12 miles) apart.

\"SLC immediately engaged with the players and assured them that all such concerns are being duly addressed in c

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