 |
June 7, 2009
Terrorising cricket
Posted on 06/07/2009 in Security concerns
In taking the World Cup away from Pakistan, the ICC suggests that terrorism is limited to Pakistan, which is untrue because incidents show that risks are prevalent to varying degrees in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. However, it is beyond doubt that the security planned and assured in writing by the law enforcers was not provided for the Sri Lankans in March and the PCB made a big mistake by not taking strict action against its own staff, writes Malik Arshed Gilani in Dawn.
Whilst there can be no such thing as complete security, surely the ICC should be able to take on the responsibility of ensuring that acceptable security is identified, planned and assured by the respective countries which should subsequently be monitored. The ICC should also examine the possibility of sourcing affordable insurance which could provide comfort to the cricketers and their families. Cricketers must also remember that being professionals, they will need to accept the hardships that added security might impose on some tours, for the greater good of cricket.
March 13, 2009
A message that no longer rings true
Posted on 03/13/2009 in Security concerns
A chilling phone conversation with an Irish terrorist four decades ago convinced Ted Corbett that sportsmen will never be the target of terror attacks because the people the terrorists want to impress love their sports stars. But the Lahore shootout has changed everything and the vision of Chris Broad in his blood-stained shirt has only dampened Corbett's wish to see the world. Read on in Sportstar.
One morning I arrived at the office to be told that our man in Belfast had died suddenly and that I had been chosen to cover football in that city until a permanent replacement could be found. There had been threats to newspapermen in the city, two had been kidnapped when they wandered into forbidden territory and the hotel they all used had been blown up a number of times. I left the sports editor’s office full of joy, sure my family would understand this brief posting, glad to have a proper job instead of sitting round the office waiting for one of the big name writers to give way to me.
As I got back to my desk, my phone rang....
March 5, 2009
Speed sees slow recovery for Pakistan
Posted on 03/05/2009 in Security concerns
Malcolm Speed, the former ICC chief executive, says security can never be guaranteed and the attacks in Lahore were a cricket administrator's worst nightmare. In a column in the Herald Sun he predicts it will be decades before Australia goes to Pakistan again.
Touring dangerous countries was previously an occupational hazard for elite sportsmen and women. After Tuesday's events, it has become a threat to the existence of professional sport in large parts of the world ...
I have wrestled with the issue of sending teams to Johannesburg, Karachi, Kingston and Colombo - all seriously dangerous cities. The conventional wisdom has been that sporting teams will not be a target for terrorists. High-level diplomatic advice was that cricket teams were unlikely to be targeted. That advice was wrong and the sporting world has changed.
March 4, 2009
Why didn't anyone notice the gunmen?
Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore
The editors of Pakistan's Jang raise questions regarding the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore, those that the government may be forced to answer over the next few days.
... the attack was carried out close to a police station and that the attackers must have conducted a reconnaissance for them to set up a kill-zone – and nobody noticed? Nobody noticed that up to fourteen heavily armed men using at least three cars, as well as rickshaws and bicycles, were securing a road junction in the centre of Lahore? A reasonable person may infer from this that there was a failure of intelligence, both electronic and human.
United we stand
Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore
|
|
|
Security guards crowd round the Sri Lankan team's bullet-ridden bus
© Getty Images
|
|
The terror attacks in Lahore carried deeper ramifications for the game with some of cricket’s superstars targeted and wounded. Rob Houwing in Sport24.com calls on the game’s community to stand together and not be driven apart by evil and bloodshed
Potential for polarisation and some resentment exists, even if the game being split along the “First v Third World” lines of old is unlikely, and to be guarded against at all costs. The world governing body, the ICC, is not always renowned for its stealth, diplomatic nous or pro-activity. This a good time for it to display decisive leadership -- there may be no choice. It is confronted by a delicate and deeply complex issue, because security for the game’s participants and enthusiasts is one of those “no middle ground” necessities.
Neil Johnson, understandably is shocked at the events in Pakistan, a country which he has fond memories of during Zimbabwe's tour in 1999. He presents a few snippets from that visit in his column in the Natal Witness.
The public in Pakistan are mad about cricket, its very much part of daily life there. Even in the dusty back streets of Lahore you would be sure to find youngsters decked out in “whites” and dusty cricket jerseys, bowling at makeshift stumps. As visitors we were treated like celebrities. All the average man in the street wanted to do was to welcome us to his country and cheer the bus as it moved on.
Paul Holden in his blog Sideline Slogger believes cricket is sullied and has become an unwitting and unwilling poster child for the renaissance of international sporting terrorism.
Cricket is a soft target for terrorists
Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore
|
|
|
An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred
© AFP
|
|
Cricket makes for a gruesomely eye-catching target for terrorists because it is high profile and, in their eyes, dangerously decadent, writes Ed Smith in the Times.
In the terrorist mindset, the effete and Western activity of cricket distracts good Muslims from what they should be doing: praying and executing jihad. In the terrorist imagination, cricket, loved by millions of ordinary Pakistanis, is an emblem of evil Western modernity. An innocent pastime becomes a symbol of hatred.
In the same paper, Simon Barnes finds it hard to work out how sport, which is an ideal target for terrorists, has managed to live a mostly charmed life until now.
Sport is already a stage and the world is watching. All a terrorist has to do is alter the script and all the publicity in the world is his to command. I have been through a million metal detectors; my laptop has been X-rayed so often that it glows; my bag has been fumbled with and my crotch groped repeatedly by the uniformed and the charmless; and I know that all this performance is just for the look of the thing and that a professional could get through with anything he liked.
In the Guardian, Dileep Premachandran writes that after the events in Lahore, the old cliche about cricket being the subcontinent's religion can be buried forever.
If the ICC is to prove itself fit to govern international cricket, it must now accept the inevitable consequences of the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore and announce categorically that all international cricket in Pakistan is suspended until further notice, writes David Hopps in the same paper.
Tunku Vardarajan believes the attacks on the Sri Lankan sportsmen have shown that these terrorist groups have no love for the idea of Pakistan as a Muslim democracy capable of cohabiting with a wider world. He writes on forbes.com.
Threat bare
Posted on 03/04/2009 in Shootout in Lahore
It is probably the last time in a long, long while that an international team is going to drive into the Gaddafi Stadium. Along with the shock of the morning, comes the sadness at all that will inevitably follow. The terrorists in Lahore have, in a very macabre manner, leveled the playing field. Sharda Ugra in her blog on the India Today website exposes the myth that cricket is bullet-proof as she takes a walk down memory lane.
From Bundu Khan’s delectable kababs to Younis Khan’s obdurate defence. From the obliging cloth merchants of Liberty market to Danish Kaneria’s more deceptive offerings. The walk to the ground before start of play is pleasant, with just enough time either to imagine what could possibly transpire over the next few hours or for the more methodical to draw up mental to-do lists. Traffic around the circle is usually leisurely, courteous in the manner of everything Lahore. As the red-brick of the stadium nears, the melee of the market falls away.
The half-hour madness in Lahore means from now stadiums will now become garrisons and cricket-watching will further move away from stands to television sets, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
The Hindu editors feel the costs of sponsoring, temporising with, or going soft on terrorism have never been higher.
In the Hindustan Times, Kadambari Murali reveals the feeling among Pakistanis through a text message she received from a sports journalist in the country.
On Tuesday morning, a Pakistani sports journalist and friend responding to an email asking if he was okay and what exactly was going on there sent back a terse, anguished reply: "Thanks, we don't exist." That's more or less what the rest of the world - cricketing or otherwise - believes of Pakistan, especially after Tuesday.
Whatever the shortcomings, the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore has shown that one would be a fool if one got complacent with promises of “foolproof security.” The visitors, after all, had been assured exactly that. Lokendra Pratap Sahi in the Telegraph, the Kolkata daily, zooms in on the soft spot selected for the strike.
First, the entry gate is rather narrow and the team bus has to almost stop before a tight right turn (for the portico) is taken. Usually, there are enough security personnel, including the Elite ‘No Fear’ Punjab Police commandos, but terrorists could still strike and cause absolute mayhem. It’s a chilling thought.
Till Tuesday, 'Tis not cricket' had a connotation quite different from what it might be in the future. Ayaz Memon in Daily News & Analysis believes the utter mindlessness of the act will have left the global anti-terror protagonists even more bewildered, and the international sports fraternity, especially cricket, bedevilled.
The PCB had last year signed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for visiting teams on the insistence of the ICC security consultants. Rehman Malik, the top man in the interior ministry, signed the SOP on behalf of the government and apparently many of the guidelines set out in the procedure were not followed for the Sri Lankan team. The following piece in Mid-Day provides the details.
March 3, 2009
Era of safety guarantees is over
Posted on 03/03/2009 in Security concerns
|
|
|
Some of the damage caused by the attacks in Lahore
© AFP
|
|
Greg Baum writes in the Age about how the rules have changed for terrorists and sports teams.
There is no Geneva Convention-style pact to cover sportsfolk on tour in dangerous places, but since the 1972 Munich Olympics there has been a kind of tacit understanding that
terrorists would not target them, for fear of an even more severe backlash.
When Sri Lanka agreed to tour Pakistan in place of India, which had been ordered by its Government not to go after the bombings perpetrated by Islamist fundamentalists in Mumbai last November, this unspoken understanding was its only guarantee. No team had been to Pakistan for 14 months.
But, increasingly, terrorists have shown no respect for understandings, explicit or implicit. The attack in Lahore marks a turning point. Thankfully, no cricketer died or was seriously injured, though six security staff and two bystanders were killed. Nonetheless, from today, new understandings come into force.
Malcolm Conn says in the Australian the situation in Pakistan could have been avoided with more action from those who run the game.
If only many of the presidents and chairmen of the so-called 10 Test-playing countries who make up the ICC put people before politics, the game would not be in such an unholy mess. That it takes a tragedy of the proportions played out on the streets of Lahore, directly involving some of the game's finest players, should bring shame to those who refuse to put safety and security first.
In the Sydney Morning Herald Jamie Pandaram reports Australia were told before they cancelled last year’s tour that the team would be specifically targeted by terrorists.
Robert Craddock says in the Courier-Mail that what makes the incident more horrifying is that Sri Lanka are the Switzerland of Asian cricket.
December 8, 2008
Why 9/11 should inspire cricketers
Posted on 12/08/2008 in Security concerns
When India take on England in the first Test at Chennai, they will have a heavier responsibility than usual. After the atrocities in Mumbai, it's perhaps time to look to sport to heal wounds. As history has taught us repeatedly, sport gives us the opportunity to be together, grieve together, feel together and hope together that somehow, tomorrow will be better, writes Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times.
On September 21, 2001, ten days after the world's biggest-ever terrorist strike, 41,235 people turned up to watch the Mets - sporting Fire Department of New York caps - take on and thrillingly beat the Atlanta Braves. It was a game that reportedly saw everyone, including the players, go through a range of open emotions - grief, rage, pain, the sheer happiness of celebrating something as simple as sport. It was also about the sheer happiness of being together for something unrelated to death, as many of those gathered had moved from funeral to funeral, grieving home to grieving home.
December 7, 2008
Catalogue of terror
Posted on 12/07/2008 in Security concerns
Forces of evil in various guises have always represented a significant danger to elite cricketers visiting the Indian subcontinent, writes Mike Coward in the Australian.
While the notion of cricket diplomacy is laudable, countries with a history of unstable government and inured to civil unrest and violence make problematic hosts for Tests and limited-overs matches. And while it is so that cricketers, indeed sportsmen, have never been targeted by those wreaking death and destruction, the England, New Zealand and Australian cricket teams have all been confronted with the outrages of extremists, be they in India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.
December 6, 2008
Chilled by deaths of Mumbai friends
Posted on 12/06/2008 in Security concerns
With a rare weekend off, Ricky Ponting says cricket won't be too far from his mind. There is plenty to think about, some good, some not so good. While Ponting has to think about tactics fr the big series against South Africa starting next week, he cannot stop thinking about the tragic events in India recently. Read his column in the Australian.
Whenever you go to an Indian hotel they always have the same staff and it's chilling to think that the people who looked after us so well may have been, in fact almost certainly were, among the dead. It is incredibly sad that something like that has happened in India. It is a country I have really enjoyed touring over the years, even though personally I have never had the best results over there, I think all the players have always enjoyed the place. It's certainly the centre of the cricketing world at the moment, so the attacks are upsetting for the players and for the game as well.
December 4, 2008
Not all countries up for big events?
Posted on 12/04/2008 in Security concerns
Whether or not England’s cricket team returns to India, the Mumbai massacre kills off the idealistic view that sporting events can be hosted by anybody, Jonathan Harwood writes in the First Post.
In an uncertain world, the idea that the global and unifying nature of sport can be reflected in all the venues at which it is practised no longer holds true.
...................................................................
However, the problems are not just related to cricket in Asia. In 2010 South Africa is due to host the biggest sporting event on the planet: the football World Cup. But its ability to do so safely and successfully remains in doubt.
The problems of the Athens Olympics are as nothing compared to those in South Africa. Even today, only 18 months from kick-off, suggestions linger that the event may have to be switched to another country.
December 3, 2008
A secure but joyless series
Posted on 12/03/2008 in Security concerns
England could decide to tour India for the Tests but Mike Atherton feels the series, under the current circumstances, will be a joyless one. He writes in the Times:
Lord’s has yet to be given any indication that its requirements are deemed disproportionate, but while its desire to do everything possible to ensure the safety of its players is understandable, the fact that neither cricket nor cricketers have been targeted on the sub- continent gives rise to the suspicion that the Mumbai atrocities have resulted in a high degree of paranoia among England players and officials.
In the same paper Richard Hobson talks to a former counter-terrorism expert who believes England should not return to India because though a targeted attack on the players is unlikely, they could find themselves caught up in a more general attack.
“Although what happened in Bombay was tragic, these acts of terrorism are not isolated,” the expert said. “Over the past two or three years it has been a regular feature of life in India. People are shocked by the events of last week, but I am not. It is a volatile, uncertain country and if anybody thinks that one part is safer than any other, they are living in a dreamworld.”
Nasser Hussain believes part of being an international cricketer these days is the realisation that you could be a terrorist target. He writes in the Daily Mail that England should tour India because the country is so important to cricket and to the Indian people that the players owe it to them to go back and play, as long as every possible precaution has been taken.
When we toured India in 2001 under my captaincy just after the attacks on New York I had no problem accepting the decisions of Robert Croft and Andrew Caddick not to tour. I told them it would not be held against them and it should not be held against Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison or any other England players if they decide they are not prepared to go. On that occasion, Mark Ramprakash stood up at a team meeting and said we should go because we were in just as much danger in London as in India. I agreed. I felt no extra pressure as captain because I was desperate to tour India, partly as my dad was Indian.
Iafrica.com's Rob Peters looks back at occasions in the past when sports and politics colllided.
December 2, 2008
BCCI needs a chief security officer
Posted on 12/02/2008 in Security concerns
|
|
|
The need of the hour is not only tight security at the grounds but careful choice of venues
© Getty Images
|
|
In the aftermath of Mumbai, the chief concern is to protect international cricket from the uncertainties arising from terrorism. The terrorist is unpredictable, and does not respect geography or nationality. You will have to factor this into your planning, writes RK Raghavan, a former director of India's Central Bureau of Investigation, in the Hindu.
The need of the hour is not only tight security at the grounds but careful choice of venues. The BCCI has been playing populist politics. On paper it seems to be a good idea to take cricket to unconventional places. However, such a strategy exposes cricketers to risks because of divergent standards of arrangement and quality of law enforcement. In some States, the police forces are not exactly known for their professional skills ... Fundamental, of course, is strict access control to dressing rooms and hotel rooms. The Oval has a permanent space for a control room for the Met. Can the BCCI make a similar provision at least in the major venues? It will help infuse confidence in foreign teams. A full-time chief security officer could guide the BCCI in what has become a specialised discipline.
Arthur Turner, in Sport24, writes that the ICC needs to be more pragmatic in a security crisis and he gives the example of its handling of the Champions Trophy.
The tournament should have been rescheduled immediately in another country once it became obvious that Pakistan was not safe to host the tournament. By postponing it they have just created confusion and compounded the future scheduling problems of international cricket.
The Guardian's Richard Williams believes the swiftness of England's return home after last week's attacks in Mumbai suggests the party lacks the sort of authoritative leadership capable of advancing preferable options.
I don't think they're fainthearts. I just think they're indifferently led and prey to the delusions that tend to affect the behaviour of English sportsmen when they enter the celebrity bubble. If the Foreign Office says that the situation is too dangerous, then of course they should stay at home. But I can't help remembering the absurd precautions taken to guard England's footballers during the last World Cup - the helicopter escorts, the squads of mounted police and the street closures that caused inconvenience to bemused German motorists - and I wonder about the quality of the advice the cricketers are receiving from those whose careers are, to some extent, dependent on the existence of a threat.
The editors at Indian Express believe sport is the epitome of the ordinariness, the joy and security of everyday life and in India that representative sport is cricket so it is only fitting the England team return for the Tests.
If Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison choose to opt out of the Test series they can kiss goodbye to the millions pending in the Indian Premier League in-tray, writes Kevin Garside in the Telegraph.
Do Flintoff et al imagine that in five months’ time, India will be any less vulnerable to terrorist episodes, any less of a target? Or that an efficient anti-terror mechanism might be fashioned by the Indian authorities by April? No chance.
Also read Sambit Bal's views on why India must tour Pakistan on cricinfo.com.
December 1, 2008
You're not going to win
Posted on 12/01/2008 in Security concerns
England have returned home following the Mumbai attacks and though the Tests are scheduled to be played it still isn't clear if the team will come back to India. The Times' Simon Barnes feels England have an opportunity to say something important, loudly, triumphantly and publicly, something that is best said in the most robust language possible, and it is this. F*** all terrorists. You're not going to f***ing win.
When you take a big wicket or score a big century, you are not alone because the country celebrates with you. When you fail, when you mess it all up and, say, get drunk on tour and need to be rescued from a pedalo, the country jumps on you. That's the deal: those who are up to it are paid handsomely, and quite right, too. It follows, then, that an England cricketer is not morally entitled to think like a private person. Like me, for example, or you. An England cricketer can't duck out of a tour like a tourist. He has to think bigger than that. That's the job he signed on for. We pay an athlete to inspire us. Flintoff batting in the Ashes series of 2005, Flintoff taking Australia wickets and inflating his chest like a Lilo, Flintoff consoling Brett Lee in England's victory; these things matter to us. They are the sort of things a great athlete does, and at such times we know they are worth every penny of the money they receive.
The Guardian's David Hopps heads to Ahmedabad to see the preparations carried out for the first Test between India and England scheduled to start on December 11.
England will stay in the Fortune Landmark, a 20-minute drive from the stadium which is made quicker when you represent Team England and rush-hour traffic is being cleared by armed police escorts with blaring horns. Behind the duty manager's desk at the hotel today lay a fresh consignment of CCTV cameras, not yet unpacked. While Neerah Gewali, the assistant manager, explained how England would be protected, an Ahmedabad crime prevention unit arrived at the front desk to issue new instructions for all.
November 30, 2008
India is not yet Pakistan
Posted on 11/30/2008 in Security concerns
|
|
|
If England return for the tour their stock with India will surge
© Getty Images
|
|
The survival of the game could be under threat if India as a venue gets excluded from international cricket, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
Unlike Pakistan, India is the hub of cricket, both in terms of its popularity and its financial health. If the game’s revenues have grown manifold and the players are earning more, it has a lot to do with India and its growing economic clout. Already the postponement of the Champions League is having a negative impact on state teams from Australia and South Africa. They and even their boards were hoping to make huge financial gains from the League, which is supposed to impact the future of cricket in a major way. If India loses its primacy in cricket’s pecking order due to the fear of terrorist strikes and if the economic meltdown further erodes the investments in the game, then cricket could be in serious danger of losing the kind of mind-boggling revenues it had started generating of late. It is because of these very reasons that foreign teams will think ten times before refusing to come and play here.
With diplomatic circles insinuating Pakistani involvement in Mumbai terror attacks, India's tour to the country looks in danger now, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Sunday Times.
If the tour is cancelled, the Indian board will do everything in its power to shoehorn the Champions League into the itinerary ... The possibility of financial losses is hardly India’s only concern, though. The BCCI is now the prime mover of world cricket. If these attacks keep teams away from India, it could severely weaken their grip.
In the same paper Simon Wilde believes if England return for the tour their stock with India will surge.
They will be in a position to extract favours from India — and Pakistan, who want cricket in Asia to be normalised as soon as possible, as they have staged almost no meaningful cricket for a year because of security problems.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Scyld Berry says that there are two objections to England's Test series going ahead in 11 days' time, and neither of them is security.
The first objection is a matter of public taste and decency. Yes, "the show must go on" – but only after a decent period of mourning.
...
The second major objection to the Test series going ahead as scheduled is the effect that 'India's 9/11' has had on the players of both countries
If England return to India this week, it will be a joyless affair, they will be going because they think they must. Therefore they should stay at home, says Stephen Brinkley in the Independent on Sunday
Continue reading "India is not yet Pakistan"
November 29, 2008
Cricket gives hope to India after acts of terror
Posted on 11/29/2008 in Indian cricket
Steve Waugh, writing in the Daily Telegraph, turns his sights towards Mumbai following the terrorist attacks there this week. India is a place he loves and he feels hurt by the events, but believes cricket has the chance to help the healing.
The game is on the verge of a crisis and clear, concise thinking will be required from the various cricketing bodies to make sure that the correct decisions are made. Time is a great healer but, much like 9/11, life on the subcontinent will never be the same. The need for security will be paramount and this will affect all facets of life.
My gut feeling is that cricket will see an interruption in the short term but business will resume as normal shortly afterwards. The game of cricket in India is a way of life and a symbol of hope and, as such, it has the ability to restore faith and instil confidence.
November 28, 2008
Calm and perspective needed
Posted on 11/28/2008 in England in India 2008-09
At their blog, The Wisden Cricketer magazine's editor, John Stern, calls for greater perspective in the wake of the terrorist attacks in India.
The chances of England returning for the two-Test series in India seems negligible. I can’t believe that there is much appetite among the players to return so unless the ECB force them to go back, which is inconceivable, then the Tests are off.
This is a shame. Totally understandable, even inevitable, but a shame nonetheless. On the one hand, sport can seem utterly trivial at times of great tragedy and personal suffering. But on the other, this is when sport can show its best side, it can be a force for good, a symbol of public resilience, of normality, a sign that we will carry on with our lives in the face of vile pressure. Above all, it is a chance to remember why we love this game, its capacity to bring fun, entertainment and excitement into our lives.
I didn’t expect Kevin Pietersen to be standing in the lobby of his Bhubaneshwar hotel saying: “We ain’t going nowhere.” Nor did I really expect Lalit Modi to be saying with such certainty that the Tests would go ahead. “There is no problem with that,” is possibly one of the most glib statements I’ve ever heard from a cricket administrator and (to paraphrase Blackadder) you can imagine there’s some pretty stiff competition. Was it stiff-upper-lip Dunkirk spirit from Modi or was it textbook grandstanding from the man who effectively runs world cricket? I know where my money is.
In contrast, Miles Jupp provides a more whimsical look at a possible England team meeting...
As preparation for the Fifth ODI in Cuttack, England opted to have a team meeting rather than a practice session. The following is a transcript of a tape recording of their meeting in the team room at the hotel made by a private detective.
We can hear talking, laughing and the noise of darts and table tennis being played.
Peter Moores: Excuse me everybody. Excuse me.
There is the noise of more chattering and giggling. Someone is doing what sounds like an impression of Bob Willis.
Moores: C’mon now, guys. Let’s have a bit of quiet. Can you come away from the pool table for a moment?
The chattering gets louder.
Moores: (mildly) Kevin, would you mind getting them all to…?
KP: EVERYBODY SHUT UP.
The closeness of danger
Posted on 11/28/2008 in Security concerns
|
|
|
To walk from the Taj to the Oberoi was to experience first hand the passion for cricket in India
© Getty Images
|
|
Terrorism, which is ever-present, becomes something more tangible when cricketers are able to contextualise: hotels they have stayed in, cafés they have drunk in and bars in which they might have whiled away a few hours before a rare day off, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
In the same paper, Patrick Kidd writes that the tour must go on even if England take a break and return after Christmas.
England owe it to India and their fans to demonstrate that life must go on after such senseless carnage. The cliche about not letting the terrorists win can sound trite, but it is a valid one. England may seek sanctuary back in Europe, but others don't have that option. Even though reports suggested that the terrorists were seeking British and Americans, the bulk of those who died or were wounded were Indians. England should stay and compete as a mark of respect to them.
The Guardian's Mike Selvey feels the same way and calls the ECB's decision to have the players return home for a week a ludicrous extravagance and a carbon footprint exercise.
Five days in Colombo would surely have sufficed, or Dubai or Singapore. Once the players are home, it will take massive willpower to drag them on to a plane to India once more. The corporate feel, downtrodden as it may have been after the experiences on the field thus far, will have been lost. If the series does take place, the chances of Kevin Pietersen's team regaining any sort of intensity are not great.
Harsha Bhogle feels England have made the right choice of returning home and he advises India not to tour Pakistan as well. He writes in the Indian Express:
... even in our part of the world, Cricket must grow insignificant at times. It is a game that brings a lot of joy and cheer and optimism, but it is just a game. It cannot compete with war.
In the Daily Telegraph, former England captain Michael Vaughan, who was due to be in Mumbai this week before the High Performance camp was moved to Bangalore, speaks openly of his reaction to the terrorist attacks.
All our white Test kit is in one of the rooms at the Taj Mahal where one of the sieges has been going on: all our pads and clothes for the Test series, and our blazers and caps and ties. All the stuff was deposited there after England's two practice games in Mumbai at the start of this tour. That's how close the danger is.
In the morning I woke up to a number of texts from people back home who thought I was in Mumbai, and I wanted to go home and get back to my two kids. I didn't think we were under threat in Bangalore, and history to date says cricketers are safe. But our security man said we couldn't go in our England kit to the hotel where we eat 60 yards across the road from the stadium, and we'd have to go in cars, we couldn't walk. We were told we couldn't go to any of the hotels in Bangalore that westerners use.
The future of a sporting venture is an irrelevance when weighed against the massive loss of life of the last 24 hours, but it is to be hoped that the brutality played out in the hotel lobbies does not stall cricket too long, writes Paul Kelso in the same paper.
To walk from the Taj to the Oberoi was to experience first hand the passion for cricket in India. First you cross the Oval Maidan, a mile-long strip of patchy grass in the heart of the city, on which scores of impromptu cricket matches take place apparently from dawn to dusk. Next you pass the Brabourne Stadium, historic home of the Cricket Club of India, a venue steeped in colonial ease that is due to host one of England's Test matches next month ... The Brabourne stages Tests rarely since the Board of Control for Cricket in India abandoned it in favour for the vast purpose-built bowl of the Wankahede Stadium, an 80,000-capacity arena whose floodlights are visible from the upper terrace of the pavilion. Now badly dilapidated and undergoing renovation, the Wankahede symbolised the first era of Indian cricket's expansion. A mile to the south on Marine Drive the Oberoi played host to the birth of the second when I visited.
Shane Warne in an article for Australia's Daily Telegraph recounts the luckiest night of his life, as he got off the Singapore Airlines with Darren "Chuck" Berry and Dimitri Mascarenhas.
I feel like it could have been like the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. I am glad I chose the right door. I feel extremely lucky.
Do cricketers require greater guarantees than the rest of the population? How much would their smart retreat embolden another cell of publicity-hungry terrorists, asks James Lawton in the Independent.
|
|
RSS Feed
