Attacks put question over India's cricketing future

New Delhi: Former England captain Michael Vaughan's first reaction on hearing about the terror attacks in Mumbai was to get back home to his kids. The batsman said he had constantly thought about how terrorism was getting close to the game and the attack in Mumbai has just confirmed those thoughts.

"It's getting closer. I remember watching on TV a few weeks ago as the lorry-full of bombs went off at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, where England were due to stay for the Champions Trophy, and thinking crikey, it's getting close," he wrote in The Telegraph from Bangalore where he was practising with England's high performance squad.

"There seem to be these triggers, or warnings, that it is getting closer to cricket."

Vaughan and the England high performance squad who were due to be in Mumbai this week, but their plan was changed at the last minute. Even now the White Test kits of the England squad, who will fly back home on Friday night, is in one of the rooms at the Taj Mahal hotel.

"All the stuff was deposited there after England's two practice games in Mumbai at the start of this tour. That's how close the danger is," Vaughan said.

"In the morning I woke up to a number of texts from people back home who thought I was in Mumbai, and I wanted to go home and get back to my two kids," he added.

The former skipper said he was happy that the decision to call off the tour was taken out of the hands of the players and made for them.

His thoughts were seconded by Middlesex skipper Shaun Udal, whose team did not fly out of England for the now postponed Champions League Twenty20 after initial reports of the attack in Mumbai.

"The right decision has been made. It had to be postponed given what has happened. The good thing is the decision was taken out of our hands and made for us," Udal wrote in The Telegraph.

"I've never had 24 hours like this in my life. It is awful. The most important thing is the humanitarian side of things, not the cricket. We are obviously disappointed not to be playing in a brilliant tournament but that is secondary at times like this," Udal added.