Several members of the Afghanistan Under-19 team wanted to stay in New Zealand after the recent World Cup to become professional cricketers in the hope they could support their families in their war-torn homeland. Former New Zealand player Mike Shrimpton, who took on a temporary coaching role with the Afghans, tells the Herald on Sunday that most days they rang home to check on their families and it often made for an uncomfortable environment.

"Three or four players lived in the same district where the Taleban gunmen and suicide bombers entered [while the World Cup was on]. It didn't help it was in the news here with our SAS officers involved in the heart of the capital Kabul. A number of the boys were affected. It became clear one night from talking to the captain [Noor-ul-Haq] that his family was in the basement of their house and there was a gunfight outside. It was a difficult time not knowing what was happening."

Patrick Kidd, in his blog in the Times, revisits the summer of 1939 when the Second World War brought the West Indies tour of England to an abrupt end. He compares that scenario to 1914, when cricket remained quite insulated from the initial lead-up to the First World War before the conflict put an end to the first-class game for five years.

We are fortunate not to live in such dark days. While every death in Afghanistan is a disaster for the families of the fallen, the fact that 200 fatalities in a campaign is seen as outrageous rather than 200 in one hour shows how far we have come. There is little threat to cricket from conflict - save in Pakistan -and for that we should be grateful.

Martin Williamson elaborates on the terminated West Indies tour of 1939 on Cricinfo's Rewind feature.