Black Caps abandon Pakistan tour after hotel bomb blast

4.00pm

UPDATE - New Zealand Cricket has called off the Pakistan tour and the players are flying home following a bomb blast outside their Karachi hotel today that has killed up to 11 people.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive Martin Snedden said this afternoon that the safety of the Black Caps squad and accompanying New Zealand journalists was paramount.

The team will catch a flight out of Karachi at 7.25pm (1.25am Thursday NZ time) and were scheduled to arrive in Auckland on Friday morning (NZ time).

The bomb ripped through the hotel bus about 2pm (NZT). BBC has reported that the 45-seater was rammed by a car driven by a suicide bomber.

Nine of those killed were from France, the other two were from Pakistan. Twenty people are thought to have been seriously injured.

The teams are staying at the Pearl Continental in Karachi, which was damaged when the blast tore through a bus outside the nearby Sheraton Hotel. There were no reports of any injuries to team members.

Radio Sport cricket commentator Brian Waddle, who was in the hotel, said the team was about 15 minutes away from leaving for the ground for today's match.

He could confirm that no one in the NZ team had been injured.

The blast was close to where the bus was to pick up the team.

There was broken glass everywhere in front of the hotel.

NZPA cricket reporter Mark Genty was in the bathroom of his room at the hotel when the blast went off.

He said all the windows were blown out but he was uninjured.

"It is complete mayhem at the moment."

The team and Mr Genty assembled outside in the hotel carpark under armed guard.

The team's physio Dayle Shackel was in the team bus ready to head to the ground.

"I just sat down in the bus and opened the curtains and there was a massive bang that just sat me down on the ground," he told NZPA.

"The glass exploded all around me and I wondered what the hell to do next.

"It was amazing because we don't experience anything like this and I wondered what was going on.

"I was on my own and my thoughts were to get back to where the rest of guys are."

"It wasn't pleasant at all. Had it been five minutes later who knows what would have happened."

NZC chief executive Martin Snedden, who announced the team's early return home, said he spoke to manager Jeff Crowe and coach Denis Aberhart within one hour of the explosion when they confirmed all team members were safe and well.

"I don't think this was a difficult decision to make quickly," Snedden said.

"I think the safety of our players was always the major priority and therefore it was incumbent on New Zealand Cricket to make the decision straight away and to secure the safety of our players as quickly as possible.

"The safety of our players must take priority over absolutely everything else that comes into the equation."

Security arrangements for the team in Pakistan were extremely tight and NZC took the unprecedented step of employing its own security agent to accompany the team, Australian Reg Nicholson.

The tour was originally to take place in September but was called off with the team in transit in Singapore after the terrorist attacks in the United States.

Evidence of their security arrangements was seen at the team's Karachi hotel shortly after today's blast.

"I think that Jeff (Crowe) and the players were initially quite shocked at what happened. Certainly team management and Reg Nicholson moved very quickly and activated the security plan that we had in place.

"... as a result of the plan we put in place we actually had a cordoned off area in front of the team's accommodation which meant that nothing could get close to the team hotel without going through the security areas.

"From what I understand from the little information I've had so far is that the bomb went off right across the other side of the road in front of another hotel."

Snedden said Nicholson had ensured that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Pakistan government's security arrangements for the tour had been kept up to the mark.

"I'd also say from what I have heard that they have been."

Snedden would not speculate about whether he thought the New Zealanders were targeted by those who exploded the bomb.

"We should just be concentrating on getting our team out and then work out what happened and go from there," he said.

Snedden said he had informed Pakistan Cricket Board director Brigadier Munawwar Rana of NZC's decision to bring the team home.

"I think he entirely understood.

"He was under no illusions as to the seriousness of this incident, and I think was, from what I could gather, very supportive of the decision.

"It was our right to make the decision and he certainly didn't attempt to persuade me otherwise."

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in the city where US reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed earlier this year. The city also has a history of religious and ethnic rivalry between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has thrown his weight behind the US-led war on terrorism and the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, a decision that has angered some Muslim groups in the country.

Five people, including the wife and daughter of an American diplomat, were killed when an attacker hurled grenades in a church mainly used by foreign nationals in the capital Islamabad in March.

- NZPA and HERALD STAFF