Editorial: Let's bat on in face of fear

OPINION: Another message from a faceless terror group and another sporting campaign is disrupted.

`We warn the international community not to send their people to the 2010 Hockey World Cup, IPL and Commonwealth Game," intoned the Al-Qaeda linked and ominously-named 313 Brigade. "Nor should their people visit India – if they do, they will be responsible for the consequences," the message read.

Classic terrorist rhetoric - nothing specific but laying the blame for any action squarely at the feet of their supposed victims.

The Black Sticks delayed their departure for the world cup while they assessed the situation but still intended to make it to the tournament while our shooting team, already en-route, continued with their plans. They have the right idea. Until there's more concrete evidence of an impending terror attack on our people, let's hold any more fretting and plan shifting.

Athletes like netballer Laura Langman, due to head to the Commonwealth Games later in the year, have the right to be concerned for their safety. But her worry that all the hard work and training that has gone into a Commonwealth Games campaign would be canned for nothing is perhaps the more realistic one.

Waikato University associate professor Doug Pratt pointed out this latest threat is likely more aimed at raising attention than killing Westerners.

But New Zealand sport, especially cricket, has been touched by terror. The 2002 tour of Pakistan was rightly called off when a car bomb exploded in front of the Black Caps' Karachi hotel, killing 13 people. In this incident there was no warning and it was doubtful the Kiwis were targets.

With over a decade of touring some of the world's most fractured nations, which also double as cricketing powerhouses, Daniel Vettori has some experience of dealing with terror threats.

His call this week to wait until more definite information came to light before making a decision on whether to return to the Indian Premier League is level-headed.

There is the small attraction of his almost $900,000 contract with the Delhi Daredevils, but if Vettori saw enough in the threat to pull the plug on his travels the Black Caps' skipper is not the sort of man to let other sportspeople walk into the same mess.

He was waiting for New Zealand Cricket and the Players' Association to make the call.

Failing that there's always the government, which felt compelled to wade into last year's planned tour of Zimbabwe forcing it to be called off after New Zealand Cricket prevaricated until the last minute.

No sportsperson should be compelled to play in a country in which they do not feel safe, but if sports teams stopped travelling every time there was a perceived threat, international sport would grind to a halt.

That would be something far more effective than the terrorists could likely achieve with a single bomb.

- © Fairfax NZ News