Manager reassures NZC of team's safety in Sri Lanka

New Zealand team manager Jeff Crowe has given the all clear for his team's safety in Sri Lanka after a team practice was cut short due to anti-Government rioting in Colombo yesterday.

If anyone knows about the problems of touring Sri Lanka, it is Crowe, who was captain of the 1987 side which abandoned its tour of the island nation after a bomb blast in a Colombo railway station at the end of the first Test of that series.

Ironically, it was his younger brother Martin who was captain of the 1993 team on tour when a suicide bomber completed an assassination outside the New Zealand team's hotel.

Several members of that side opted to return home despite the emergency dash made to Sri Lanka by then NZC chairman Peter McDermott. Crowe however, as a contracted player to NZC, stayed with the tour.

He is also in Colombo at the moment as a television commentator.

NZC general manager Tim Murdoch said Jeff Crowe had assured him that he had no fears for the team's safety today.

Crowe had reassured Murdoch that the CLEAR Black Caps were "very relaxed and entirely focused" on tonight's match against India in the Coca-Cola Cup tri-series.

Crowe was happy with the security arrangements for the team and had not asked for them to be increased after yesterday's trouble.

The reason the team had to call short its practice session yesterday was to ensure the team in order to meet the requirement of the dusk-to-dawn curfew that was in place.

Crowe has asked that owing to New Zealand's four-day break after tonight's game the team be transferred to the less humid air of Kandy in order to take advantage of the better practice facilities. The change was not due to any security concerns.

Murdoch said he would be keeping in touch with the New Zealand team on the latest developments.