Sport Today

Just a question...

Didn't New Zealand cut short their tour of Sri Lanka in 1993 after a bomb
exploded in Colombo while they were there? What happened...what was the
fall--out?

Tim.

Firstly, I think the year was 1992.

The tour was not abandoned, but something like six players plus
the coach Warren Lees came home and (I think) some replacement
players were flown over to Sri Lanka.

The chairman (at the time) Peter McDermott flew to Sri Lanka to
try to persuade the players to continue with the tour, but was
only marginally successful.

The fallout. Warren Lees lost his job; the morale of the team
sunk to an all time low, and; New Zealand Cricket is only just
beginning to recover. (Most of what has happened since can be
either directly or indirectly linked to the events of 1992.

Peter Mcdermott is no longer the Chairman; Christopher Doig
has replaced Graham Dowling as the Chief Executive; Warren Lees
successor was sacked and Glenn Turner is now the coach, and;
New Zealand has a new captain in Lee Germon, not to mention a
not insignificant number of new players.

New Zealand cricket is definitely on the up, and we can look to
the future with some confidence, although success might be a year or
a year or two away (in terms of consistancy).

Dave

Interesting conjecture.  I agree the decline of NZ cricket was certainly
accelerated by the Sri Lankan tour.  But I'm not entirely sure what the
correct course of action should have been.  The players who went home all
had families and said that they couldn't put their families through the
stress involved with having their husbands (and fathers) touring a country
where bombs were going off.  In fact, reports from the players after the
tour stated pretty clearly that evryone in the touring party was scared
shitless by the bomb blast and the dead (and dying) bodies in the street
outside their hotel.  The players reaction was understandable (consider
the fact that any one of the team could very very easily have been walking
down the street at the time of the blast and been killed.

But the question is what should have been the correct response.  Was NZ
cricket made worse by forcing half a team (plus some ring ins) to carry on
the tour?  Certainly there were other problems with NZ cricket (eg a
selection panel that was 20 years out of date and completely out of touch
with modern cricket.

Personally I suspect that the real damage was separating the team.
Reports state that McDermott put tremendous pressure on players to stay on
tour, that pressure no doubt divided the team (who were unanimous in their
desire to come home immediately after the bomb).  By splitting the team
and bringing in "scabs" (yes that's an emotive term) I think team spirit
was eroded.  More damaging I think was the impression that the NZ cricket
council cared more about the tour profits than they did about the
players.  The lack of loyalty towards the players that was shown by the
council has recently been reflected by the lack of loyalty to NZ cricket
shown by the players.

As for NZ cricket improving, I'd agree, but there are still problems.
Glen Turner has made a difference but changes still need to be made in the
selection panel.  Players like Flemming and Parore need to make the step
up from 20s and 30s and only getting runs when there is no pressure
(Parore in particular) to forming the backbone of innings that regularly
totals 400 or more.  The bowlers need to establish roles for themselves
and work together to break partnerships, it's not good enough for each
bowler to buy wicket with runs, and bowlers need to recognise that
sometimes bowling the "wicket ball" is the wrong delivery.

Overall, NZ cricket is immature, but promising.

cheers
Bart

: Just a question...
:
: Didn't New Zealand cut short their tour of Sri Lanka in 1993 after a bomb
: exploded in Colombo while they were there? What happened...what was the
: fall--out?
:
: Tim.

Yes they did, a bomb exploded outside the hotel.

The team decided to come home, but NZ cricket sent Peter McDermott over
to try and make them stay.

In the end 6 players left - Larsen and Patel were 2 of them, don't
remember others along with Warren Lees (coach at the time) and the tour
carried on with replacement players and NZ got hammered.

It ended up costing Wally Lees his job, despite what the administrators
will tell you about Geoff Howarth being "the better candidate"

Alex.

An intriguing comment... please elaborate on direct links... afraid I've
missed even the indirect ones?  

jeff