Quake puts Sri Lankan cricket tour on hold
Quake puts Sri Lankan cricket tour on hold
Agence France-Presse,
Auckland
Sri Lanka's cricket tour of New Zealand was put in doubt
Monday after the devastating tidal waves which killed nearly
6,000 people in their home country.
"We are really worried, but we need to speak to the guys and
see how we take it (the tour) from here," team manager Brendan
Kuruppu said.
"It's a disaster in Sri Lanka, we're in shock and having a
nightmare," he said.
Sri Lanka lost the first of five scheduled one-day
international matches against New Zealand by seven wickets on
Sunday and flew Monday from Auckland to Napier, where the second
match is scheduled for Wednesday.
Kuruppu met with the team and New Zealand Cricket chief Martin
Snedden in Napier and then told a press conference a decision on
the future of the tour would be taken Tuesday after he could
speak with Sri Lanka's cricket board overnight.
He said he would not rule out a rescheduling of Wednesday's
match, but indicated the tour itself -- due to climax with two
Tests in the second half of January -- would go ahead.
"It will be a difficult thing in the immediate future, but as
professional cricketers if there is a job to do we would be
getting into cricket mode," he said.
"We are really concerned about the people in Sri Lanka. The
team want to send their sympathies to the families who have lost
their loved ones, and our thoughts are with them."
Two players' mothers were injured by the tidal waves and a
relative of another player's wife had been killed, Kuruppu said.
He declined to identify the players.
Snedden said he had already drawn up some contingency plans
for the tour, but would wait to share them with Kuruppu and the
Sri Lankan board on Tuesday.
"We'll start thinking about the cricket when the time's right,
and we both of us agree the time's not right now, it's all too
fresh," he said.
"Tomorrow we'll really address the issue properly, and
obviously there will be some decisions that have to be made
pretty quickly at that stage."