Players bound to put safety first

The former New Zealand wicketkeeper Adam Parore has strong views on the shootout in Lahore and what ramifications it has for world cricket. Parore, who says one the reasons he retired before New Zealand's tour to Pakistan in 2002 was that he didn't want to go there, believes playing in the subcontinent is "clearly unacceptable". In fact, he believes the 2011 World Cup will have to be moved to somewhere else, perhaps Dubai, because it is inconceivable that it be held in the Asian cricketing countries. Read on in the New Zealand Herald.

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.

An editorial in the same paper says that Pakistan has run out of chances.

Does cricket possess a worse administrator than Pakistan's board chairman Ijaz Butt? asks David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald.

Has there ever been a more wrong-headed reading of a major incident surrounding a sports team? How could a senior administrator put both feet knee deep into an issue where sensitivity would have seemed essential? It may be that Butt felt his country's security forces needed some verbal support in a time of stress. Or it could be that in terms of possessing a skerrick of diplomacy in his veins, he's on a par with a goat.