England have reiterated their commitment to their current tour of SriLanka

Andrew Miller in Colombo06-Dec-2007

England players are happy to continue their tour of Sri Lanka despite another terrorist attack in the north of the country © Getty Images
England have reiterated their commitment to their current tour of Sri Lanka and will continue as planned with Sunday’s second Test despite another terrorist attack in the north of the country.According to Sri Lankan authorities, at least 15 people were killedand 38 injured when a Tamil Tiger landmine detonated beneath a crowdedbus one and a half hours away from Anuradhapura, 165 miles north of Colombo.Last week, two bombs exploded within ten hours of each other inColombo itself, killing at least 17 people including the personalsecretary of a government minister. England returned to thecapital on Wednesday night, hours after slipping to an 88-run defeatin the first Test at Kandy.”Reg Dickerson [England’s security advisor] has been in touch with theBritish High Commission,” Andrew Walpole, the team’s medialiaison officer, said. “Their travel advice has not changed. The players areable to leave the team hotel although, as is normal in this situation, they must inform the security manager of where they are going.”Security in Sri Lanka has been on high alert for several months, eversince the fragile peace between the government and the separatistTamil Tigers began to crumble in early 2006. In August of that year,South Africa’s one-day squad pulled out of a triangular tournament inthe country following a blast that killed seven and injured 17.”It definitely caused concern, but we’ve got to concentrate on thecricket,” Kevin Pietersen said after last week’s attacks. “It’s never nice to hear of casualties, and our hearts go out to those people and their families, but we’ve been told that our circle is pretty secure, hopefully. We’ve just been told to get on with the cricket and concentrate on what we’ve been paid to do.”