Adam Parore: Players bound to put safety first

The 2011 World Cup in Asia is a dead duck - it doesn't take much analysis to quickly reach this conclusion.

The dreadful terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Pakistan has seen to that.

Playing cricket in the region was already seen as a major risk. Now, that risk is clearly unacceptable. The tournament will have to be moved to somewhere such as Dubai because it is inconceivable that it be held in the Asian cricketing countries.

The ICC has taken little action yet but I'm sure it knows what the outcome must be. It will go through a due process and make sure that the decision looks to be made in the right manner. India and co will want the tournament played in their time zone, so I can't see it being shifted to somewhere such as Australasia.

It's not hard to work out that the tap must be turned off in Pakistan's case, but there has now been a seismic shift because cricket teams are clearly regarded as legitimate targets.

India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka must also be regarded as too dangerous to remain as hosts for this World Cup, and as cricket tour venues in general.

It wasn't too long ago that a pile of Pakistani terrorists crossed the border and did their heinous work in Mumbai for 10 hours, killing close to 200 people. It is very hard to distinguish between any of those countries in terms of predicting what dangers exist.

One of the main reasons I retired before the Black Caps' tour to Pakistan in 2002 was that I didn't want to go there.

The security advisers to New Zealand Cricket told us it would be fine, but it didn't take too much research on the internet to decide that it was a major risk. As it turned out, there was a fatal bomb blast outside the team's Karachi hotel, and subsequent CIA reports revealed that Pakistan was a hive of terrorist activity.

The bigger issue now is what happens to cricket in this volatile region. India, the powerful centre of world cricket, is in the same boat as Pakistan in my opinion. I don't believe that cricket tours can continue to take place in these countries until terrorism is stamped out. How do you know if it's been stamped out? You need four or five years clear of any terrorist attacks.

This could mean a slow death for the game in those places, and there must be quite a high probability that international cricket will never be played in Pakistan again.

The effects will probably not be immediate. But it will become harder to generate sponsorship; especially with matches being played in unfavourable time zones, and the flow-on effects will eventually be felt.

India's Twenty20 league must also be under severe threat because a lot of the world's top cricketers will be having second thoughts about returning there. The players' approach to the forthcoming IPL will be interesting if it goes ahead - do you run the gauntlet for a million bucks? It is a time of great uncertainty and concern for cricket.