That attitude hardened when about 80 people were killed and nearly 400 injured in serial blasts in G

The Foreign Office advice discount new york hotel booking about India warns today that particular caution should be shown in areas frequented by tourists. There were worse places therefore than the east coast city of Bhubaneshwar for England's cricketers to go to ground. It is a surprisingly well-ordered city with a strong sense of civic pride, but foreign tourism is not its strong point.
The majority of England's players were too exhausted on Wednesday night, discount new york hotel booking following defeat against India, to search out information about the Mumbai atrocities, discount new york hotel booking which reports suggest have left more than 100 people dead and 250 injured.
Those who left their phones on were awoken discount new york hotel booking by worried relatives watching news reports back in the UK, and encouraging them to return home. For most, however, it was only when they awoke in the five-star Mayfair Hotel the next morning, and for once turned to the news channels rather than the sport, that the full horror became apparent.
England's cricketers discount new york hotel booking live with the threat of terrorism, and are surrounded by security to a suffocating degree, but the deliberate targeting of affluent Western tourists has made this atrocity more disturbing to them than the political assassinations, or random explosions, that had unsettled them in the past. The sense that they could be targeted is stronger this time.
The Taj Hotel in Mumbai has housed England teams for a generation and more, lulling them into a sense of security with its genteel colonial splendour. It serves a restorative purpose, an escape from the bedlam that takes place incessantly outside its doors; that sense of retreat has now been utterly destroyed. A braver discount new york hotel booking England cricketer might get as far as Leopolds bar, just down the road. The Brabourne Stadium, venue for the first Test, is in a mass of narrow streets less than a mile away.
The England squad held an emergency meeting at the Mayfair Hotel by mid-morning. Reg Dickason, their security adviser, briefed them on the situation. The Indian board was quickly advised that England had "serious reservations'' about continuing the tour and it was agreed that, although the one-day series should be abandoned , the two Tests that follow should be examined in detail in the next 24 hours. But the announcement by Lalit Modi today that the Champions discount new york hotel booking League Twenty20 has been postponed surely suggests that the Test series must be cancelled too. The Champions League Twenty20 final was due to be played on December 10 — how can the England players now be expected discount new york hotel booking to play in a match, the first Test, which is scheduled to start around 12 hours later?
England will discuss the matter with "expert sources''. The players will be pressurised down mobile phone lines by inexpert sources, who have seen the TV and imagine that the whole of India is ablaze.
The decision to call off the rest of the one-day series was inevitable. It was not just the forlorn mood of an England side 5-0 down with two to play. They had been due to take a special charter flight to Guwahati, on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra river, by lunchtime, but they have been griping about it since the tour itinerary was released.
That attitude hardened when about 80 people were killed and nearly 400 injured in serial blasts in Guwahati at the end of October, blasts attributed to Islamic terrorism. Kevin Pietersen, England's captain, tried to suggest after a match affected by bad light in Kanpur that Guwahati should be dropped because "it goes dark by 3.30[pm]''. Amazingly, the Indian board resisted pressure to shift the match to Mohali.
The England team did not travel to Guwahati, but the speed of their decision was such that some supporters had to catch their early-morning discount new york hotel booking flights regardless. Among them were the Patel family — father, mother and fiancée of Samit, the England all-rounder on his first tour. They have loyally trekked around India from the outset, independently discount new york hotel booking coping with a harsh itinerary that others have avoided. Ronnie Patel has mixed emotional highs with an occasional wish to be back in his Nottingham newsagents. That feeling will have been at its strongest when he touched down in Guwahati and heard the news.
The immediate reaction of many England players has been that the whole tour should be abandoned. A tour not scheduled to get them back to England until Christmas Eve has its family tensions. The fact that the Mumbai terrorism was not just a brief, solitary explosion, but was heading towards its second day has made that feeling even more entrenched.
But second thoughts always complicate things. If India is unsafe now, will it be any less unsafe when an England player is offered a huge pay-day to play in the Indian Premier League? How can they square that? And as much as the ECB does regard players' safety as paramount, what is an acceptable risk especially when cricketing relations between England and India are at a delicate stage? A few — not many — may even concur that to flee from Islamic terrorism is not a moral option. These thoughts will stray into the minds of players and officials alike.
That England discount new york hotel booking will not travel to Mumbai for the pre-Christmas Test is surely inevitable. The Foreign Office advice has stiffened. "We advise against all non-essential travel to Mumbai until further notice. If you are currently in Mumbai discount new york hotel booking we advise you to stay indoors and monitor the media.'' Their advice to England will have been to avoid Mumbai until more is known.
But Ahmedabad, too, the venue for the first Test, suffered from terrorist explosions in July. Bangalore, floated already as an alternative venue, was bombed in August. discount new york hotel booking Bombs in India are now a fact of life — yet so far India, unlike Pakistan, discount new york hotel booking has retained the loyalty of its cricketing opponents.
On the journey from Bhubaneshwar to Cuttack, venue for the fifth ODI, the dual carriageway crossed several broad river deltas. Orissa survives primarily on agriculture, providing 10% of India's discount new york hotel booking rice production. Cows and wading birds wander across irrigated fields and it is all rather pretty.
I made that journey yesterday. Suddenly there was a blaring of horns and a cavalcade of police and army in a hotch-potch of vehicles discount new york hotel booking came flying past. Somewhere in the middle was the England coach. The chance for quiet contemplation was sucked away, replaced by the din of high security. It struck me not for the first time that this generation of England cricketers will never see the true nature of India.
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