da dobrowin： A tournament billed as a clash between three of the teams most likely towrest Australia’s crown at next year’s World Cup will now in all probability giveway to a bilateral one-day series between Sri Lanka and India.
da bet7： Dileep Premachandran in Colombo14-Aug-2006
End of the tour for Ashwell Prince’s boys? © Getty Images
A tournament billed as a clash between three of the teams most likely towrest Australia’s crown at next year’s World Cup will now in all probability giveway to a bilateral one-day series between Sri Lanka and India. This follows a bombblast in Colombo on Monday afternoon which prompted the South African team toreassess their presence on the island.Unless the ICC threatens them withpunitive measures, the South Africans – already rattled after an explosionkilled three on the final day of their Test series – will head home on theadvice of their consulate and the security firm in charge of theirsecurity. The players are united in their desire to curtail the tour, andGerald Majola, the chief executive of the United Cricket Board of SouthAfrica, is sympathetic to their stance.The explosion, triggered by a Claymore mine, took place in front of the popular Liberty Plaza shopping mall, killing seven and injuring 17. Four of the dead were army personnel providing an escort to, Bashir Wali Mohamand, the Pakistani High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, who escaped unhurt. According to the Sri Lankan government, the target was the Pakistani High Commissioner as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was disturbed about the close cooperation existing between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in defence matters.Sri Lankan cricket officials and security experts said as much in ameeting with both the Indian and South African team managements, assuringthem that the blast was a one-off. They insisted that security for bothteams would be further beefed up. But with the blast taking place lessthan 2km from the Cinnamon Grand hotel where South Africa are staying, andjust over 3km from the Taj Samudra which houses the Indians, there weremore than a few worried players by mid-afternoon.Torrential rain throughout Sunday night and much of Monday morning hadalready dampened any hopes of the tournament starting on time, and MickeyArthur, South Africa’s coach, said after the meeting with Sri Lankanofficials that his team continued to be jittery.”We are pretty worried,”he said. “They tried to explain how a cricket event or the teams wereleast likely to be targetted. But this was quite close to home. It’s fairto say that if we hadn’t been playing today, a lot of our boys might havebeen over at Liberty Plaza.”With India having cleared a massive contingent for the South Asian Games,which starts here on Friday – the football team is already in town,staying at the same hotel as the South African cricketers – the stancefrom New Delhi was quite different. Having spoken to BCCI officials backhome, Rajan Nair, India’s media manager, announced that a further meetingwas planned for Tuesday morning, and that the Indian team was protected bythree layers of security at their hotel.When asked if the prospect of ablast en route to the ground – Liberty Plaza is on the way to the SSC,where India were scheduled to practise on Monday afternoon – worriedthe players, he said: “Sri Lankan security officials are responsible forsafety when we are travelling, and they have assured us that nothinguntoward will happen.”Though Sri Lanka Cricket officials quickly came out and said that thetournament was unaffected, with Sri Lanka and South Africa expected togive it another go on Tuesday, the feeling of unease in the South Africancamp was palpable. Players hung around the lobby, waiting for news andasking their friends in the media for updates. By late afternoon, itbecame known that the team were keen to leave, and that officials backhome in South Africa were weighing up the ramifications of a pullout.Gordon Templeton, the team’s media manager, told Cricinfo: “Our cricketboard is in consulation with the consulate here and also our securityfirm. They will come to a decision based on that.” Asked whether thatmeant not waiting for the meeting announced on the morrow, he said: “Thedecision will be taken by the board, and it may happen before that.”Several of the South African players voiced their fears privately. Onetold this correspondent: “Before we came here, we were assured that theproblems were all up north. But this is the second bomb in a week, andwe’ve also read of numerous assassinations.” His views were echoed byArthur, who said: “The situation seems to be getting worse too, if youwatch the news and read the papers. We saw today that a truck full ofexplosives had been stopped just outside of Colombo.”The Indians, though, sang from an altogether different hymn sheet,perhaps acutely aware of the fact that they will be hosting the ChampionsTrophy in October, less than three months after the serial blasts onMumbai’s suburban railway network.Sharad Pawar, the BCCI president, saidthat it was the host nation that had to take a decision, while Lalit Modi,the vice-president of the board, told Cricinfo: “What South Africa decideis their business. Let us not speculate. Let us wait for the facts andthen decide. The series is on and we haven’t heard anything to thecontrary.”By nightfall, the South Africans were more or less ready to pack theirbags. An ICC spanner in the works was unlikely, given that neitherAustralia nor West Indies was punished for boycotting matches in SriLanka during the 1996 World Cup. With such a precedent to fall back on,it was a near-certainty that the triangular would become a South Asianface-off, inclement weather and terror attacks permitting.
