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WELLINGTON, March 16 – The Bangladesh cricket team left New Zealand today, less than 24 hours after carefully avoiding the worst mass fire in the country, which now had to accept the fact that sporting events had probably changed forever.
One armed man killed 49 people and wounded more than 20 during Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch, during the country's worst shooting that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern condemned as "a terrorist attack".
The Bangladesh team was in a bus approaching Al Noor Mosque, where 41 people died, on the eve of the third test that took place in nearby Hagley Oval when the shooting began.
The match-test, which was to start today, was canceled after the shooting and the abandoned Bangladesh tour.
Violent crime is extremely rare in New Zealand and the Bangladesh Cricket Board has stated that these attacks have now changed their perception of the safety of teams during their tours.
"We will demand adequate security wherever our team goes in the future," BCB President Nazmul Hassan told Dhaka on Friday. "If a country provides adequate security in accordance with our request, we will otherwise go.
"I can say that everything will change after this incident."
The Pakistani Minister of Human Rights, Shireen Mazari, has also suggested that the International Cricket Council, the world governing body, may be harder to say against the organization of matches in New Zealand.
"The ICC should take note and possibly suspend cricket in New Zealand after this act of terrorism?" Mazari said on Twitter.
Pakistan has not been able to hold home matches since 2009, when gunmen attacked the bus carrying the Sri Lankan team to a match in Lahore. Six of the visitors were injured and eight residents were killed.
New Zealand has not visited Pakistan since 2002 as a result of a suicide bomb attack outside their hotel in Karachi and played their games in the UAE.
They also abandoned a tour of Sri Lanka in 1987 after a bomb attack near their hotel in Colombo.
The executive director of New Zealand cricket, David White, said the country should now also agree to no longer be safe from acts of extreme violence and that this should be taken into account when organizing sports events and teams.
"It's shocking. This will change the entire fabric of international sports accommodation. I think everything is changing now, "he said.
"We will definitely have to examine our security in depth. I think the idea that New Zealand is a safe haven is gone.
"We must now be very, very vigilant – all authorities and sports organizations, absolutely." – Reuters
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