WHY THE TEAM BUS IS THEIR ACHILLES HEEL
THE most chilling aspect of the Dortmund attack is the shocking reality that the team bus, sanctuary for sportspeople, has become one of the most vulnerable targets for terrorists.
Cricket has known players are in greater danger on their way to a stadium rather within it ever since the Sri Lanka coach was ambushed in Pakistan eight years ago.
That incident not only changed the cosy assumption that sportspeople were immune to modern terrorism but also transformed cricket into the most security conscious of all the world’s leading sports.
Nowhere was that more evident than in Bangladesh last winter, where England were guarded by up to 2,000 security personnel every day and an Australian former policeman became the most important man in world cricket.
So integral has Reg Dickason become to the safety of the world’s leading cricketers that his Dubai- based company, Eastern Star International, has become the go-to organisation for any national board wanting to ensure the show will go on.
IT WAS on England’s journey from carefully chosen hotels — with entrances away from main roads to reduce the threat of attack from suicide bombers in cars — that Dickason’s operation was concentrated.
To be part of the convoy that transported both teams — in buses fitted with bullet-proof glass — plus officials and the media to England’s matches each day in Bangladesh was to be at the centre of the biggest security operation in sport.
Some of the most chaotic roads in the world were cleared so the teams could travel quickly and efficiently to the ground in a process co- ordinated with military precision by Dickason. Crucially, the buses never had to stop, so risk was minimised in a country where the terrorism threat was considered acute.
And woe betide anyone late for the convoy, which had to leave exactly on time, as poor Haseeb Hameed discovered when he found himself on the end of a tongue-lashing from Dickason on his very first day with England.
‘Sadly, there is always the possibility of an incident taking place at major events now,’ said Dickason yesterday from Brisbane. ‘Sport has been a target for many years and security costs can’t be a single line in a budget any more.
‘we put measures in place in Bangladesh that were pretty much unprecedented because it is much harder to control the environment away from the stadiums than it is at the venue itself. But we had a lot of government involvement and funding and it’s not easy to replicate what we did.’
That is the problem football faces because it could not be expected to bring a city like Dortmund, for example, to a standstill the way Dhaka was affected. Hosting Monaco in the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final was important, but England’s visit to Bangladesh was absolutely vital to that nation’s prosperity.
Yet another step forward was taken when high-profile cricket even returned to Pakistan last month for the first time since those attacks on Sri Lanka, with the final of the Pakistan Super League going ahead peacefully in Lahore.
Overseas players, including England’s Chris Jordan and Dawid Malan, were transported in bullet-proof vehicles from airport to hotel to ground and straight back again after the game but were happy with the protection afforded them.
Should sport take place in that environment? Surely it has to otherwise the attackers have won. England proved it even though they went to Bangladesh without their captain in Eoin Morgan, and Dortmund and Monaco emphasised it last night when their match went on.
There really is no choice, but the security blanket provided by experts like Dickason will increasingly be prevalent.