Let's get serious, serious...
After the Mumbai bombings, the latest Test matches to be put in jeopardy are England's in India and India's in Pakistan in the New Year (although India hadn't actually confirmed that tour before the bombings - I'm not sure why given that it's only a couple of months away). It's only stating the obvious to suggest that this problem isn't going to go away and the ICC and it's member countries need to consider how to handle these types of situations, otherwise known as contingency planning. That might seem an obvious suggestion (check these links for terrorism in England, India and Pakistan for example and make your own assessment of the likelihood during a cricket tour) but judging from the way officials from the BCCI and ECB have been in constant negotiation and making individual public statements, it would seem that either this particular contingency plan didn't exist, or isn't working. Here's some basic Cricket Burble suggestions:
Terrorist attack during a tour:
1. Make no public statements until both boards have agreed on next steps, but recognise the need for making an announcement quickly.
2. Make a public statement together.
3. Agree not to make any element of the boards' discussions public.
(4. An additional point for teams like England who have large travelling support - recognise the problems late venue changes cause and agree who will pay for any additional costs for supporters in advance.)
Prior to the tour:
1. Consider insurance against the cancellation of the tour and assess whether it's best to have insurance for this or not.
2. Write into players contracts the circumstances in which they must tour (weighted in the player's favour so that they have the ability to choose where the situation is not black and white, but on the assumption that they will be paid less or nothing if they don't tour when the tour goes ahead).
3. Write into sponsor's contracts the circumstances in which they will receive compensation and consider insurance against it.
4. Upon agreement to tour, agree in writing what circumstances prior to the tour will prevent the touring side from coming.
5. Decide upon the criteria for a live tour to be called off up front, but allowing some "grey" for the two boards to manoeuvre as they need to.
6. Have the evacuation procedure mapped out for the touring side, should it be necessary.
7. Learn the lessons from previous terrorist attacks before or during tours.
8. Agree up front who pays for additional security should the tour continue but with greater security.
I'm quite sure the BCCI, ECB and PCB would argue that they have the situation under control and have handled it successfully, but that's not the perception. And unfortunately for them, perception is everything. Wouldn't it be reassuring to hear a joint statement from both boards saying that they are following the pre-agreed strategy for dealing with this situation, and watch them follow it instead of daily manoeuvring?
5 comments:
Not sure if you can legislate for what is/might happen in India. If I was a test player (in my dreams) I would not want to go there at the moment.
I think it is best for the ECB and the players to decide between them, after all safety is of prime importance.
Absolutely - give them enough room to manoeuvre as necessary but I hope that someone did consider beforehand how this situation might be handled....
Some interesting points, I'd be very surprised if some of them weren't in place already, certainly the insurance side. Agree with Grov though, not sure how far you can legislate for this sort of thing, I get the impression that for some of the players, whether or not they had clauses in their contracts stipulating when they should play, they would still have made a decision purely on the security advice. Can't see Harmison staying out there just because his contract said so.
My view is that saying you can't plan for something is just lazy. You might choose not to plan for it because you have other priorities, but not to recognise the value in contingency planning is a mistake, and it's difficult to see much evidence of it at the moment. While there will always be an element of individual decision making, the parameters under which they make their decisions should be defined in advance.
That would mean that Harmison, or anyone else, would have no recourse should he choose to go outside of those parameters that he previously agreed to, and there would be far greater certainty on what will happen. That would have to be a good thing compared to the "will they? won't they?" shambles....
I'm not saying they shouldn't have contingency planning, but there's only so far it can go. Ultimately you reach a point where you just have to wait and see how events pan out, and react. Not sure what else the England team could have done, they avoided making pronouncements early on, when it would have been foolish to do so given the lack of clear-cut information. They waited to see what happened next, took advice, and then made a decision. I don't see really what else they could have done, I though they handled it rather well. Any sense that there should have been a snappier response was fuelled mainly by the cricket press which had bugger all else to write about for several days. Any event such as this has an individual character, and it's difficult to make hard and fast rules that are going to apply universally.
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