Islamabad  - Pakistan announced a 125,000-US-dollar reward Wednesday for information about the perpetrators behind the daylight terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, which killed six police officers and wounded seven athletes.

Advertisements about the reward appearing in several newspapers carried television stills of Tuesday's attack in which two terrorists were pictured from two angles carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and backpacks.

Seven Sri Lankan players and their British coach were injured when at least a dozen gunmen attacked their bus at a roundabout less than a kilometre from Gaddafi Stadium in the heart of Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab.

The bus driver managed to speed toward the stadium, but five elite police officers, a traffic warden and two passers-by were killed in the shootout.

"The firing on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore has disgraced the country," said the ad placed by the Punjab government.

Members of Sri Lanka's cricket team praised their driver for saving their lives when they returned home Wednesday.

"If the driver had not driven off, it would have been difficult for us to survive," skipper Mahela Jayawardene told journalists upon arrival at Bandaranaike International Airport outside Colombo. "Fortunately, he was not injured, and he managed to drive us away."

Pakistani investigators said more than 100 suspects were rounded up in overnight raids but the authorities did not yet have any hard evidence to pin the attack on a particular group.

Most of the arrests were made in a poor settlement on the edge of Lahore's upscale Gulberg neighbourhood, where the ambush took place Tuesday morning.

An unconfirmed media report said some of the gunmen were among the detainees.

Up to eight attackers were taken into custody and a blood-stained shirt along with a live hand grenade were seized from a private hostel, the Urdu-language Aaj news channel said, citing police sources.

The report also said three attackers were injured in Tuesday's more than 15-minute exchange of fire.

Security officials were also interrogating some private guards who allegedly saw one of the attackers escaping after abandoning his weapon and a bag of ammunition.

Investigators said an initial inquiry indicated that the attackers intended to take the cricket team hostage rather than to kill the players.

"Given the preparedness level of the terrorists, a standoff between them and the authorities would have proved disastrous," an official taking part in the investigation said on the condition of anonymity.

Police had recovered a large cache of ammunition, hand grenades, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, Kalashnikov assault rifles and improvised explosive devices. (dpa)