AB de Villiers

Johannesburg: The media and the public in South Africa have criticised the decision of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) to pull out of the tri-series in Sri Lanka, even as a school team was ordered to join the national team’s flight back home on Thursday.

Many called up radio stations around the country and described the players as fearful “sissies”. Others said the players were under no threat and should have stayed back to play the tri-series.

According to a Johannesburg paper, the decision to abort the tour was “a wrong move by CSA”. Another report called captain Mark Boucher and his team “chickens”.

The decision was “regrettable, to say the least,” a paper wrote.

“By withdrawing from the tournament featuring South Africa, India and Sri Lanka, our national cricket team has spelled the triumph of anarchy and terror over good reason.”

The South African players, however, defended their decision and denied that senior players bullied junior colleagues into agreeing to abandon the tour on security grounds.

“We all decided together that we wanted to go home because it’s not safe here,” said 21-year-old AB de Villiers shortly before the team’s departure from Colombo on Thursday evening.

“It was completely a team decision. I’ll give everything for my cricket, everything but my life. It had nothing to do with senior players or junior players. It was a complete team decision,” De Villiers said.

“Bouch (Boucher) was very disappointed to read some articles claiming that there was a split in this squad. We are going home and that is the right decision.”

Even school cricketers from St John’s College (Johannesburg) were asked to fly home. “We’ve been asked by the council that governs our school to return home, so we’ve cancelled the tour midway,” team coach Richard Venter said.

The young cricketers from St John’s College played a match in Colombo on Thursday. “We’re just following instructions, it’s cost us a lot of money to rearrange the flights back home,” said Venter, whose team had been in Sri Lanka for 10 days.

(Agencies)