Sydney: Before the inaugural edition of the next week’s Twenty20 Champions League was “postponed” in the wake of Mumbai terror strikes on Wednesday night, some of senior Australian cricketers had come under heavy pressure from their wives and families to ignore the huge money on offer and refuse to tour, even though a few others were keen to go for the tournament.
Both Mathew Hayden and Mike Hussey have young families while Watson, dropped for the second Test team, has been spending time with his partner Lee Furlong this week.
Shane Watson said the bombings had hit home hard.
“I know they are not going to send us into an area under high alert. You can''t put any nervous energy into thinking about the trip. It''s extremely sad something like this can happen, especially hitting some landmark spots in the city. It seems that tourists have been 100 per cent targeted, which is a worry,” the Daily Telegraph quoted them as saying.
Hayden described the abandonment of the Champions League as “a sad day for cricket” but insisted that there were bigger issues to worry about.
“It is a huge loss for international cricket when you consider two of our national domestic sides were going to travel there to be a part of a global tournament and arguably one of the future success stories of the game,” he added.
The Aussie all-rounder further said: “That impact is minor compared to the social and economic impacts it will have on India. From our point of view having a great affiliation with the country, we are shattered for the lives of the people that have been affected by it.”
CA cricket Operations Manager Michael Brown said players’ safety was the priority.
“We're obviously concerned and we're working closely with our government, we''re working closely with our player association and the state associations. We want to know were the risks inherent just to today or whether they're part of an ongoing issue,” Brown said.
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