Adam Parore: Sri Lankans had no choice but to head home

Sri Lanka's decision to head home to face something so significant in world and humanitarian terms as to render a sports tour of any sort meaningless was a no-brainer.

I'd have been staggered if they had opted to stay on. The key issue was how they would have been able to keep their minds on cricket when their families, relatives, friends and businesses were trying to cope with a huge natural disaster.

The simple answer is they could not.

There are people who have argued they would be better to sit tight for a few days, then get back to playing cricket. That is the view of people who have never been in the situation the Sri Lankan players faced.

This is a time for those players to be at home. Their thoughts would have been elsewhere, they were in a strange country with a different culture and a high pressure environment - and their hearts would not be in it.

Newspapers and television had been telling them of the devastation back home. In New Zealand the players would have been left feeling helpless.

All sorts of things have been happening in Sri Lanka that could affect them.

Even if the players' immediate families were all safe, they have property. Had it been damaged? What about insurance issues? What about their business interests?

There were all sorts of social and economic aspects which would have been on their minds. As I say, a no-brainer.

I was in Sri Lanka in 1992 when a bomb went off outside our hotel in Colombo, killing many people.

Six of our players headed home, as did coach Warren Lees. It was a vastly different situation, yet similar in terms of what it does to your mind.

I wanted to get out of there but I had the hard word put on me. Go and you won't play for New Zealand again.

Had I been older and wiser I would probably have resisted that threat and taken my chances. But not when you're 21 and still finding your feet in the team.

The same message was given to some of the other younger players such as Murphy Su'a and Chris Harris. It was ugly, heavy stuff.

New Zealand Cricket needed the tour to go ahead and went about it without much subtlety.

My recollection is that the older players in general weren't especially fazed by developments, which surprised me. But the leadership was determined to stay.

Our captain, Martin Crowe, was keen to continue because it would have been disruptive to his leadership to do otherwise.

Peter McDermott, the NZC chairman, insisted the tour had to proceed.

I didn't have a particularly good relationship with McDermott anyway.

It's fair to say that experience didn't help.

Indeed, my experience with management and officialdom in my early years in the New Zealand team - and not only McDermott - was not good.

I found it generally destructive towards players and player relations.

From my perspective, it took a lot of work from later managements to restore any faith.

And credit where it is due: the approach to the job of current chief executive Martin Snedden is light years away from that of McDermott. We really have come a long way. Mind you we needed to.

Meanwhile, hats off to Australia for yet another series win, this time over Pakistan.

You cannot fault their sustained excellence.

Plenty of teams can go toe to toe with them for three days it seems, but tests are supposed to last five.

Their dominance is reminiscent of the West Indies of the 1980s, who steamrollered everyone in their path.

It's a cycle, and all sides go through them. Think back 15 years and Australia were closer to being the worst than the best test side. But the Australian board have put systems in place to allow excellence to flourish. It hasn't happened by luck.

Of the two disciplines, I believe their bowling will be the first to wobble. Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne will be gone one day - sooner rather than later - and bowlers of their class don't grow on trees.

Until then, it's up to the other nations to close the gap. Don't sit back and bemoan Australia's class.

Try to match them. You can be certain Australia's players, and the Australian board's financial wizards, will want closer contests that get the turnstiles clicking again.

* Adam Parore is a former New Zealand wicketkeeper